->/■ 






^^ju $u.<& 






Class 
Book. 




I 









_ 



Copyright^ 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



Present Day Life and Religion 



A SERIES OF SERMONS ON CARDINAL 
DOCTRINES AND POPULAR SINS. 



By A. C. DIXON, 

RUGGLES ST. BAPTIST CHURCH 

BOSTON 






PUBLISHED BY 

F. M. BARTON 

CI^EVSI/AND, O. 



Two Copies 

FEB 6 1905 

Coitfngui tin 

GU4SS Ol- XXg 

COPY L\ 



Copyrighted 1905 

BY 

F. M. BARTON. 



3Xfc333 
.I)5 5 : Pl 



< 
« « 






Contents. 



1. The Ethics of Prayer. 

2. Ethics of the Atonement. 

3. Ethics of the Doctrine of Heaven and Hell 

4. Ethics of Business. 

5. Ethics of Marriage and Home L,ife. 

6. Ethics of Amusements. 

7. Ethics of the Theatre. 

8. Ethics of the Dance. 

9. Ethics of the Card Table. 

10. Ethics of Novel Reading. 

11. Ethics of Secretism. 



The Ethics of Prayer 

" Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? " Gen. xviii : 25 
" Men ought always to pray." Luke xviii : 1 



THESE TWO SCRIPTURES bring us into the 
realm of ethics which has to do with the Tightness 
and oughtness of things. When a man is ethically 
sound, he is what he ought to be. Abraham with holy 
boldness applies the ethical test to God himself. He 

rightness ^ ee ^ s tnat ** wou l<} De wrong to destroy the 
and righteous with the wicked, and he is equally 

oughtness certain that it would be right to spare the 
many wicked for the sake of a few righteous. His 
horror at the thought of God's doing wrong and his 
approval of his doing right make him ask the ques- 
tion, " Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" 
This gives us the divine side of prayer from an ethical 
point of view. Is it right for God to answer prayer ? 
Does the "Judge of all the earth" do right when he gives 
audience to such petitioners as Abraham pleading for 
Sodom ? 

The second text gives us the human side of prayer 
from an ethical point of view. It answers the question : 
Who is ethically right, the infidel who boasts that he 
never bows the knee, or the christian who prays? Is a 
prayerful life a moral life and, conversely, is the prayer- 
less life immoral ? In other words, can one who refuses 
to pray be ethically sound in his relations to God and 
man ? Are ethical Associations that divorce morals from 
religion moral or immoral institutions? Jesus answers 
these questions: "Men OUGHT always to pray." 
Prayer belongs to the realm of oughtness. It is an 
ethical proceeding, so that the institution which inveighs 
against praying is unethical in character. It would 
prevent God from doing right in answering prayer, ami 



Rev. A. C. Dixon s Sermons 

man from doing right in praying. The philosophy of 
this is found in the teaching of Jesus Christ. 

We will look first at the Divine side : 

First, God is King, and it is right for a king to hear 

and answer the petitions of his subjects. Prayerlessness 

ignores, if it does not despise, the ruler of the universe 

by refusing to consult or petition him about any 

GOD AS j • rrn5 i i " 

KING need or grievance. lne prayerless man has 
placed himself outside the pale of civilization 
by denying to the ruler the right to hear the petitions oi 
his subjects. If he admits that there is a God, while at 
the same time he denies that he hears prayer, he has 
brought his God down to the position of a petty savage 
chieftan who lives for his own pleasure "without regard 
for the welfare of his subjects. Prayerlessness is, there- 
fore, a species of barbarism. 

Second. God is Judge, and it is right for a judge 
to hear and answer the prayer of a plaintiff. In the 
parable the widow has a grievance against her adversary, 
and pleads that he shall be punished. Though 
JUDGE the judge is unjust, his judicial position compels 
him to hear her plea, and her importunity con- 
strains him to grant her petition. Now if an unjust 
judge is compelled by official position to hear the plea, 
and constrained by the importunity of the plaintiff to 
grant it, how much more will a just God respect his 
judicial position and answer without demanding impor- 
tunity, u I tell you that he will avenge them speedily." 
For men to reject God as the arbiter of their affairs and 
wreak vengeance upon their own adversaries is an index to 
the spirit of barbarism, where there is no recognition of 
judicial power, but every man is his own judge and jury. 
Prayerlessness is ethical anarchy. It ignores or despises 
the "Judge of all the earth" by refusing to consult or 
petition Him about grievances. 

The parable of the Pharisee and the publican, which 
follows without break the parable of the unjust judge and 
the widow, carries with it the idea of God's judicial 
position. It is really a parable of the just judge who has 



Ethics of Prayer 

i> -slti introduced to you by contrast with the unjust judge, 
\\A we have a different type of petitioner. The widow's 
plea was for herself against her adversary. The Phari- 
see's plea is also for himself, though he recognizes no 
adversary. He tells God all the good things he can 
think of about himself and makes self the plea for self. 
He has come into the court not for defense but for parade, 
a most unseemly proceeding. He does not seek for a 
verdict of acquittal, because he has pronounced upon 
himself a verdict of approval. He simply addresses the 
Judge and then pays attention only to himself, going out 
as he came in inflated with his own importance. He has 
simply patronized the court, and evidently feels that the 
Judge ought to be complimented by the appearance of 
such a man before him. He stands as the type of those 
whose reverence for themselves displaces reverence for 
God. 

The publican, on the other hand, comes unto God 
with becoming spirit and demeanor. His bowed head 
speaks his humility. He is unworthy to look up to 
heaven, much less to enter. Like the widow he would 
make a plea against his adversary — his own sinful self. 
He strikes upon his breast to indicate the home of that 
adversary — his own sinful heart. u God be merciful to 
me a sinner" is more than a confession of guilt. A 
more literal translation is, " Be a propitiation, make 
atonement for me a sinner." On this prayer is the blood 
of Christ. In it you can hear the heartbreaking of 
Calvary, as he who knew no sin is made sin for us. It 
is really a plea for mercy on the ground of Christ's merit. 

The Pharisee uses the name of God once and the 
assertive pronoun " I " five times. He would like to 
make a stream of mercy flow upward to God by the 
,, , pressure of his own egotism. The publican links 
and the name of God with the dependent pronoun 
ME '' u me," and puts himself in the stream of mercy 
that flows downward from God through Jesus Christ on 
the cross. God shows his love, power and benevolence 
in a thousand ways, but I know of only one channel 
through which mercy, which means favor for guilty 
tinners, flows, and that channel is the cross of Christ. 



Rev. A. C. Dixon s Sermons 

It would not be right for a judge to forgive a man win 
has been proven guilty unless satisfaction to justice dk. 
be made. Without this satisfaction God could not be 
mercy U J us t an d the justifier of him that believeth." 
may be Mercy without satisfaction to justice is a species 
injustice f injustice. It may be based upon kindness, 
but that does not rid it of injustice. The guilty one has 
not been treated as he deserves, but if his guilt has been 
atoned for by another, then mercy is prompted by justice 
to forgive. u If we confess our sins, He is faithful and 
just to forgive/' To punish sin after it has been atoned 
for would be an injustice to the atoner and unkindness to 
the one who has confessed the sin and accepted atone- 
ment. God righteously demands that guilt shall be 
punished, but Jesus Christ died the "Just for the unjust. " 
u He bore our sins in his body on the tree." "With his 
stripes we are healed." 

To say that confession of sin is atonement enough 
ignores the righteousness of God. Confessing judgment 
in court is not equivalent to satisfying judgment. Con- 
tudgment f essing the debt does not pay the debt ; it 
and rather enforces the obligation to pay it. But 

debt if the judgment has been confessed and the 

demands of the law satisfied by another, it would be 
injustice to enforce the judgment a second time. If the 
debt has been confessed by the debtor, and justly paid 
by another, it would be flagrant injustice to demand a 
second payment. It is well known that Henry Clay, the 
orator and statesman, became involved in debt until he 
was bankrupt. A wealthy political friend offered to pay 
Mr. Clay's debts, but the proud Southerner refused to 
accept the offer. However, the pressure of the creditors 
and the injury it did his reputation led him, when the 
offer was made a second time, to accept the payment 
with thanks. The friend, prompted by love, had a right 
to pay Mr. Clay's debts, and Mr. Clay had a right to 
accept the payment. The creditors could noc, of course, 
collect a second time. Jesus taught us to pray " forgive 
us our debts." Sin is a debt to justice and must be paid 
by someone. The bankrupt sinner confesses the debt 
and is willing that Jesus Christ by his death on Calvary 



Ethics of Prayer 

should pay it. It is right for God to accept the payment 
and cancel the indebtedness. Of course the publican 
went down to his house justified. He had been dealing 
with a just judge, and when he pleaded for mercy through 
the propitiation of Christ, a clear receipt was given him 
at once. 

It would have been wrong to forgive the Pharisee, 

because, in the first place, he confessed no debt, and, in 

the second place, he attempted to bring the judge into 

debt to him. His so-called prayer was 

PHARISEEISM more of a charge that Q od was under obli . 

gation to him because he had been such an ideal citizen. 
To justify a man like that would be to justify self -inflated 
vanity and the spirit that despises others. To take such 
a man to heaven would be to fill the Father's house with 
sensorious critics rather than obedient children. Such a 
man, spreading the peacock feathers of his own vain 
assumptions, would be an incongruous figure among 
those who are singing, "Worthy is the Lamb that was 
slain." He could not join in the song, because the only 
hymn he knows is, u Worthy is myself." This Pharisee 
stands at the head of the class who to-day exalt man and 
talk of the divinity of human nature, while they reject 
the deity of Christ. When they come before God in 
prayer, it is to tell him how great man is, as seen in the 
discoveries he has made, the books he has written and 
the civilization he has produced. They preach sermons 
on the love of God in which they declare that God can 
love only the worthy, and they infer from this that they 
are very worthy, because God loves them. ' 6 Salvation by 

character " is their watchword. They do not 
a god* G come to the judge for acquittal, but rather to 

inform him that, so far as they are concerned, 
he may as well adjourn court, for they are not on trial. 
All the charges of original sin that come to them through 
their forefathers, or of actual sin which they are alleged 
to have committed, are false. Sin does not deserve con- 
demnation, and there is, therefore, no need of atonement. 
For God to pronounce a sinner guilty and worthy of death 
would be to deal harshly. They, dear, soft, tender souls 
that they are, would not treat a sinner in that way, and 



Rev. A. C. Dixon s Sermons 

>i course God would not do what they would not do. 
Their God they have created in their own image, and he 
must accept their confession and their standard of right 
and wrong. What appears harsh to them God must not 
do ; and, if he does it, they will reject him as their God. 
In other words, they have pushed God off His throne of 
judgment and seated themselves on it. Instead of allow- 
ing him to try them, they are boldly trying Him. And 
they have decided that He has no right to be judge. They 
will permit him to be only a very indulgent father. They 
assert that the vilest of earth are his children, forgetting 
the libel which this implies, since children are expected 
to be like their father. The king who rules in righteous- 
ness is made a weakling in dealing with conspirators and 
traitors. His decrees have no weight, because he is too 
gentle to enforce them. His laws of nature are acknowl- 
edged to be inflexible, but in the moral realm he must 
not be judicial. 

It would, of course, not be right for God to forgive when 
His right to condemn is denied. How can He forgive 
when the authority of His throne has been impeached 
and no forgiveness is asked, because no guilt 
washing * s acknowledged ? The Pharisee goes out of 
vs. court unforgiven because he did not ask it. 

^j / ?ii NG Unjustified before God because he had justified 
himself independently of God. The only God 
he recognizes is one to be thanked and informed as to his 
own merit. Satisfied with whitewashing himself, he did 
not ask God to wash him white. 

But it is right for God to answer prayer for forgive- 
ness when his authority to condemn is accepted and the 
guilt of sin has been confessed. And this authority is 
based not upon sentimentality or even mercy, but upon 
justice, for the guilt of the petitioner has been borne by 
another, not compelled to do so by the sentence of the 
court, but prompted by His own heart of love. And 
the Tightness of such a procedure becomes apparent when 
we learn that the judge himself has had part in making 
the atonement by which the guilty may be not only 
acquitted but declared righteous. Judges have been 
known to pass sentence upon criminals and then set them 



Ethics of Prayer 

free by paying the fine which the law imposed, and they 
have been applauded for it. They have the right to do 
so, if they wish. 

Though there is much in the atonement which we 
cannot understand, and all illustrations of it are imperfect, 
yet from this it is plain that it is ethically right for God 
to answer prayer for remission of sins when sins have 
been confessed in such a way as to acknowledge His 
authority ; and when such confession is made with a 
prayer for forgiveness on the ground of Christ's atone- 
ment, it would be wrong for Him to refuse to answer. 
Such a refusal would be injustice to Christ. 

Third. God is Friend, and it is right for one friend 
to hear and answer the appeal of another friend. In 
Luke 1 1 : 5-8 we have these words of Jesus : u Which of 
you shall have a friend, and shall go unto him 
friend a ^ midnight, and say unto him, ' Friend, lend 
me three loaves, for a friend of mine in his 
journey is come to me, and I have nothing to set before 
him.' " This takes us a step beyond the parable of 
judgment. If we have confessed sin and received for- 
giveness, we have become friends of God. Abraham 
approached God as friend comes to friend. A friend 
on a journey applies to a friend for bread, and the 
friend, not having it, goes to his friend and requests the 
loan of three loaves. Now is it right for one friend to 
apply to another for the supply of urgent need ? Is it 
right also for one friend to make friendship the basis of 
appeal for another friend in need ? Is intercessory prayer 
ethical ? The friend at first refuses to rise at the incon- 
venient hour of midnight, and gives as his reason that 
his children would be disturbed. His consideration for 
others makes him hesitate ; as if to say, Why should one 
person be deprived of sleep, which body and mind need, 
in order that another should be supplied with bread? 
Can your friend not wait until morning, so that in help- 
ing him I will not disturb others ? 

Here is a conflict of friendship with love. The father's 
love for his children makes him seek their comfort, 
while the friendship of the man for his traveling friend 
causes him to be importunate in his entreaty. The 



Rev. A. C. DixoiJs Sermons 

importunity of friendship prevails against the desire of 
love to give rest and comfort. The children in bed arc 
not praying to be allowed to sleep. Their helplessness 
is their only plea. But here is a friend i* v 
friendship nee d with a friend to plead his case, and thj 

inconvenience, the out-of-seasonness of thfc, 
hour, suggests the urgency of the need. God cares foi 
His children, though they do not ask Him ; but, when a 
friend of His comes with a prayer for others in need, he 
is willing to put His children to inconvenience that this, 
prayer may be answered and the need supplied. 

Is there anything wrong in all this ? Is it not right 
for a father to be tenderly solicitous about the comfort of 
his children? And then is it not right that the father 
should disregard the mere comfort of his children that he 
may answer the prayer of an importunate friend as he 
pleads for his friend in need ? The whole matter reduces 
itself to this : Is friendship ethical ? The reply of every 
noble nature is that it would be wrong for friend to 
refuse to help friend in need. Indeed, true friendship 
says that it would be wrong for a man to refuse to make 
known his need to one whom he knows to be his friend. 

The one thing in this parable which appears at first 
glance to be harsh is the refusal of the friend to rise at 
midnight and give the bread, lest he should disturb his 
children. And yet that apparent harshness goes to con- 
firm the fact that we believe it is right for one friend to 
answer another friend's prayer, even though it puts him 
to inconvenience. Will the opponents of prayer deprive 
God of the right and privilege of responding to friend- 
ship, that he may supply the needs of His friends who 
call upon Him? Friendship justly claims the right to 
help friendship. And to deny to God what we concede 
to man is unreasonable. 

Fourth. God is Father, and it is right for a fathei 
to hear and answer the cry of His child. If you confess 
the fatherhood of God and then deny that h^ 
father * s influenced by the cry of His child, you would 
degrade him below the level of the beasts of the 
field and the birds of the air, for they heed the cry of their 
young in distress and hasten to their relief. So right v- 



Ethics of Prayer 

it for the Father to hear the prayer of His child, that the 
universal consciousness of mankind gives Him no option. 
He must hear it, or be branded as infamously heartless. 
Even pagan ethics demand it. For a parent to be insens- 
ible to the cry of his child is a sign of insanity, mental 
or moral. 

The father has, of course, the right to use his superior 
wisdom in deciding whether or not the child's request 
shall be granted. He has no right to give poison to his 

child because he cries for the beautiful 
package that contains it, but he is compelled 
to answer the cry by u yes" or "no." He has no right to 
be insensible or indifferent to it. I heard Mr. Moody say 
that he liked to have his children ask him for everything 
they wanted. They did not always receive it, because 
he might not be able to give it, or he might think it best 
to withhold, but he was pleased with their asking. It 
showed loving confidence. That is a true father's heart ; 
and God is a true father. He tells us in all things with 
thanksgiving to make our requests known unto Him. 
And if we ask anything according to His will He will 
grant it. The child has no right to command the father 
except by his obedience. In nature we can command 
God only by obeying Him. If we obey the laws of 
electricity or steam, we may command them and they 
will do our bidding. But if we refuse to obey their 
laws , they refuse to obey us . And so when God promises 
upon certain conditions, and we fulfill the conditions, His 
promise becomes our command, and we may lovingly 
insist upon its fulfillment. 

Dr. Weston has said that prayer is not ordering God 
in an arbitrary way to do our bidding. If such were the 
case, he would not want to live in this world, for millions 
of people, many of whom are young and inexperienced, 
would be ordering God to do things every day, and in 
doing them he would give us u a mess of a world" to 
live in. But real prayer is asking and receiving from 
Uod grace to do what He wishes us to do. It is the 
child making known his desires to a father whose wisdom 
and love he can trust to do what is best, all of whose 
resources are at the disposal of the child within the circle 



Rev. A. C. Dixoiis Sermons 

of that loving will. For a father to give to a child whaf 
every whim of fancy or selfish desire might prompt him 
to ask, would be to injure the child and make the ordei 

of home give place to the anarchy of discord- 
defined an *- demands. It is right, therefore, for God 

as a ruler to give attention to the petitions of 
His subjects ; as a Judge to hear the plea of a plaintiff ; 
as a Friend to grant the request of His friend ; and as a 
Father to give to His child all he asks within the limita- 
tions of His superior wisdom. So inuch for the Divine 
side of prayer. 

Let us 7iow consider the human side : 

Is it right for man to pray ? The question has really 
been answered, for, if it is right for God to answer 
prayer, it is certainly right for us to pray. 

The poor widow comes to the Judge to avenge her of 
her adversary. Would it be right for her to refuse to 
submit the case to the Judge, while she takes vengeance 
THE into her own hands ? No, for u vengeance 

plaintiffs is mine, saith the Lord." Is it right for 
RIGHT christians to pray against people as this 

woman prayed against her adversary? Yes, for the 
martyrs in heaven say in Rev. 6 : 10, u How long, O 
Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our 
blood on them that dwell on the earth ? " The feeling 
which demands that injustice and cruelty should be 
punished is not alien to heaven. It is a righteous feel- 
ing. But we have no right to do the punishing. It is 
our right to bring the case to the u Judge of all the earth, " 
believing that he will do right. If you have been wronged 
by another, do not try to right the wrong by punishing 
your adversary. Tell God on him. Leave the matter in 
God's hands. You need not be importunate in your plea 
for justice. God w r ill avenge speedily. 

The imprecatory Psalms bring before God the enemies 
of the Psalmist, who are also the enemies of God, and 
plead that justice be meted out to those who will not 
repent and accept mercy. The Psalmist leaves his foes 
in the hands of a just God, and every christian has the 
same privilege. This does not mean that he is to bear 



Ethics of Prayer 

hatred and malice. Far from it. He may even forgive 
them for the crimes they have done him, while he prays 
that God's righteous rule shall be vindicated. He is 

jealous for God's honor, while he knows 
prayer AT0RY that J ust retribution is the best that God 

can do for any one who refuses to repent. 
The widow was making the best possible prayer for her 
adversary, when she asked for his punishment. Better 
for him, in the long run, that he should smart for his 
wrong doing than that he should go on unrebuked and 
impenitent. Thus we truly pray for our enemies when 
we pray against their evil doings. 

It is right for any man as a subject of the King of 
Kings to come before Him with petition. If he has a 
grievance, let him not tell it to others, and thus back-bite 
the * ne King. The King invites him into His 

subject's presence, and will give audience even to his 
RIGHT complainings. If he is in need "Let him 

come boldly unto the throne of grace, that he may obtain 
mercy and find grace to help in time of need." The 
throne stands for royal rule. God is enthroned in grace 
and invites every subject in need to approach with bold- 
ness. And the promise is clear : u My God shall supply 
all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ 
Jesus." The resources of God's throne are at the disposal 
of all His needy subjects. With such a King would it 
not be wrong to refuse to make petition ? Would it not 
be disloyal? Prayerlessness is, indeed, disloyalty to the 
King of the Universe. 

It is right that a friend should come to a friend in 
need. Coining in need is as much a proof of friendship 
as supplying need. After God has not only told us, but 
the prc^en that he is our friend, is it not right for 

frieto'S us to believe it and show our appreciation by 
Right telling Him of any need for myself or others ? 

Shall I hesitate to apply to Him even at midnight when 
I have opportunity of doing good and cannot secure the 
means for it without His aid? Shall David refuse to 
tell Absalom of his danger and grief? Shall Damon 
keep from Pythias any secret need which he knows his 
friend will be glad to supply ? Mutuality is the test of 



Rev. A. C. Dixon s Sermons 

friendship. If we are God's friends we are ready to do 
His pleasure; and, if God is our friend, He is ready to 
Jo our pleasure in a way limited only by His superior 
wisdom. Prayerlessness is, therefore, a practical denial 
of the friendship of God. 

It is right that children should come to their parents 
not only with words of gratitude and loving appreciation 
the but with any burden of need. It is the right of 

child's children to be guided and supplied by parental 
RIGHT wisdom and wealth. It would give a loving 
father great pain to learn that one of his children had 
decided never to ask him for anything else. It would be 
an aspersion upon his love and friendship. Prayerless- 
ness, therefore, proves an unfilial state of mind. 

As a subject petitioning a ruler, as a plaintiff pleading 
before a judge, as a friend making known his need to 
a friend, and as a child crying to a father, every christian 
has a right to pray. Not to pray is, there < 
right fore, to live an unethical life in our relation* 

to God and man, in that we are not doing 
what we ought to do. To pray in the name of Jesus 
Christ is to be indued with the power of the King of the 
Universe, to receive pardon from the u Judge of all the 
earth," to be supplied with the bounty of the richest 
friend in the world, and to have the constant care of a 
loving father. 

If you are not living that life of prayer, will you not 
come before God with the publican's penitent petition, 
' w God be merciful to me a sinner," and you will go 
down from this house justified before God and with a 
^ong of praise in your soul. 



Ethics of the Atonement 

11 Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter 
into His glory? " Luke xxiv : 26. 

"Christ must needs have suffered, and risen again from the 

dead." Acts xvii : 3. 

"We also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom 
we have now received the atonement." Rom. v : 11. 

rr^UE WORD "ATONEMENT" occurs about 
A eighty times in the Old Testament, and only this 
once in the New. But the fact of atonement is every- 
where in both Testaments, beginning with Abel's bloody 
sacrifice and ending with u the Lamb as it had been 
slain in the midst of the Throne." A friend said to 
John Newton : u I cannot see the doctrine of atonement 
in the Scriptures." Mr. Newton replied: U I tried to 
light mv candle the other evening 1 with the extinguisher 
on it.'* One who reads the Bible without seeing atone- 
ment has on his mind the extinguisher of prejudice or 
false teaching. It is the sun in the heavens of revealed 
truth. The types of the Old Testament, the ordinances 
of the New, and the teachings of prophet and apostle 
join with John the Baptist in saying u Behold the Lamb 
of God.'' As the scarlet thread runs through all the 
cordage of the British naw, so the atonement of Christ 
runs through all the teaching of the Bible. 

The necessity of atonement is denied only by those 
who make light of sin. If sin be embryonic goodness, 
or merely hallucination of mortal mind, there is, of 
the necessity cours e, no need of paying attention to it; 
of atonement tne less said about it the better. But it is 
plain that God sees sin as alienation from Him, rebellion 
against Him, disease of soul ending in eternal death, 



Ethics of the Atonement 

moral and spiritual anarchy that keeps heaven out of man 
and man out of heaven; and seeing sin as it is, His 
righteousness demands, while His love provides, atone- 
ment. 

Origen in the third century taught that the atonement 
made satisfaction to the Devil. Man had sold himself 
to Satan, and Christ by his death purchased him back 
origen' s to God. It came from his magnifying unduly 
view the importance and position of Satan. Man had 

no right to sell himself to Satan, and Satan had no right 
to make the purchase. Satan himself belongs to God, 
and the right of ownership has not been destroyed by his 
rebellion. Satan is usurper even of himself. All that 
God owes him is punishment for his persistent wicked- 
ness ; and if man sold himself to Satan, all God owes 
him is punishment for being particeps criminis in Satan's 
sin. 

Another view of the atonement which has no scriptural 

basis makes the death of Christ avail for sins committed 

before baptism, while sins after baptism must be atoned 

for by penance and purgatory. This teaching 

THE 

romish keeps our Roman Catholic friends in bondage to 
the law and the priests, who will absolve them 
on condition of such penance as they may prescribe ; and 
it even holds over them the lash of purgatorial fires in the 
future world. Such a view of atonement is a clever 
device for emphasizing the pernicious doctrine of bap- 
tismal regeneration, and for keeping the members of the 
church in subjection to ecclesiastical authority. While 
real atonement gives liberty, this forges chains of servi- 
tude. 

Another very subtle and attractive, though equally 
false, view of the atonement is that Christ died a martvr 
to a noble mission, and is merely our example, teaching 



Ethics of the Atonement 

us by His life how to live, and by His death how to 
die. He did not come into the world to die, but died 
because He was in the world. The crucifixion was an 

incident which resulted f roiri the mad frenzy 

THE J 

rationalistic of an infuriated mob. This view cannot 

explain the text "Christ must needs have 
suffered/' for, according to it, there was no need of such 
suffering. The question of Jesus, u Ought not Christ to 
have suffered?" is made meaningless. It also contradicts 
Hebrews ix : 26, u Once in the end of the age hath He 
appeared, to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself ." 
The purpose of His appearing in the flesh was u to put 
away sin by the sacrifice of Himself." The cross was no 
incident nor accident. It was the Mont Blanc among the 
events of His earth-life. His resurrection merely con- 
firmed the virtue of the cross, giving to the gold of His sac- 
rifice the stamp of heaven, and thus making it coin current. 
Thomas recognized the living Christ by the nail-prints, 
and to the other disciples he u showed His hands and His 
feet." The marks of the cross he carried with Him as 
a badge of honor into heaven. In the book of Revela- 
tions we hear the celestial choir singing u Worthy is the 
Lamb that was slain." 

Judas was guilty in betraying his Lord, and the Jew- 
ish Sanhedrim were guilty in condemning him to death. 
But we need to remember that the betrayal of Judas and 
the guilt the condemnation of the Sanhedrim were no 
of judas p art Q £ t | ie atonement. Jesus would have 
u put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself" without 
their aid. He permitted them to work out their own 
condemnation while He was making possible their salva- 
tion. In this, as in all things else, He made the wrath of 
man to praise Him. 

A thousand martyrs have willingly died for civil and 



Ethics of the Atonement 

religious liberty, and we praise them, while we blame 
their murderers. The guilt of the murderer is not less- 
ened, but rather increased by the virtue of his victim. 

This false view of the atonement is based upon the 
fallacy that repentance and confession of sin is all that 
God requires. But when we apply this principle to 
an old human affairs it does not work satisfactorily. A 
fallacy christian woman, while sick, was attended by an 
infidel physician, who tried to induce her to take, in 
addition to his drugs, some of his theological vagaries, 
among which was the theory that there is no need of atone- 
ment, because confession and repentance are sufficient. 
After the lady's restoration to health she invited him to 
dine with her, and at the table she said: "Doctor, I 
am sure that you have been at much expense in treating 
my case, and I certainly owe you a good fee." He ac- 
knowledged that his outlay had not been small, and he 
was glad to hear her confess her obligation to his skill. 
u And now, Doctor," she continued, u I have confessed 
to you the debt I owe, and in order to show you my true 
repentance for it, I am determined not to do so any 
more, that is, I shall not send for you again when I get 
sick." He saw the point at once, and, with some em- 
barrassment, remonstrated against such a practical appli- 
cation of his teaching. But the good woman, with 
loving earnestness, insisted that he must give up either 
his teaching or his fee. Let us hope that he saw his 
folly and acknowledged that to pay the debt of sin more 
than confession and repentance are necessary — indeed, 
that confession enforces the necessity of paying the debt, 
and repentance does not take the place of satisfaction to 
justice, but rather emphasizes the righteousness of the 
demand that satisfaction shall be made. 

The divine side of the atonement is in Romans iii : 



Ethics of the Atonement 

24—26 : u Being justified freely by His grace, through 

the redeinption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God hath 

set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, 

to declare His righteousness for the remission of 
the to 

divine sins that are past, through the forbearance of God ; 
to declare, I say, at this time His righteousness ; 
that He might be just, and the justifier of him which 
believeth in Jesus." 

Five things are clearly taught by these words : 
First. We are " justified by grace through the re- 
demption that is in Christ Jesus." " By grace" means 
that it is without merit on our part. The basis of it is 
" the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." It is of grace, 
and to add works as the ground of justification is to 
destroy grace ; but to add works as the result of justifica- 
tion is to crown grace with the glory that is its due. 

Second. God has u set forth Jesus Christ to be a pro- 
pitiation.'' u Herein is love, not that we loved God, 
but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propi- 

love for tiation for our sins." (I John iv : 10.) God 

the unlovely ^j^ nQ ^ j ove ug "k ecause we loved Him ; He 

loved us while we were yet unloving and unlovely. He 
manifested His love in many ways, but the climax of its 
manifestation was in sending His Son to be, not our 
example, our inspiration or our teacher, but u the pro- 
pitiation for our sins." Man is guilty, and, in order to 
salvation, guilt must be removed. The great purpose of 
the incarnation was to make it possible for Him to remain 
God and justify the sinner. All this implies depths of 
iniquity in sin which we have not fathomed, and heights 
of righteousness in God which we have not scaled ; and yet 
our dim vision can see that a righteous God cannot main- 
tain His righteous rule and save the guilty without propi- 
tiation. And His love, as well as His righteousness, is. 



Ethics of the Atonement 

vindicated when we are informed that love prompted 
and provided the propitiation — u not that we loved 
God, but that He loved us." God does not require 
propitiation by the sacrifice of another, but He makes 
propitiation demanded by His own nature, through 
the incarnation, humiliation and sacrifice of Himself. 
What His righteous nature demands His loving nature 
gives . 

Third. This propitiation comes to us "through faith 
in His blood." On the night of the Passover a living 
lamb tied to the doorpost was not sufficient. Propitia- 
faith IN A tion does not come through faith in a living 
dying CHRIST Crm S t. Faith in a perfect model may in- 
spire to noble deeds, but it does not save from sin. Faith 
in a wise teacher may lead one to sit at his feet and learn, 
but it does not remove guilt. Faith, even in the miracle 
worker, may give us glimpses of a God of Power, but it 
does not relieve the guilty conscience. 

Fourth. God's purpose in this propitiation is u to 
declare His righteousness." Calvary is God's declara- 
tion to the universe that His throne is established in 
to declare righteousness. Jesus died that all the 
and commend wor i(j might know this righteousness. 
Now link with this the Scripture, " God commendeth 
His love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners 
Christ died for us." In the death of Christ, God declares 
His righteousness and commends His love. He would 
have us believe in His love while we see the manifesta- 
tion of His righteousness. Love gives all that righteous- 
ness demands, and righteousness is pleased with all that 
love would give. In a very deep sense Jesus Christ is 
the Peace of God. His death keeps peace among all the 
divine attributes. Justice and mercy cannot be at peace 
because in their natures they oppose each other, unless 



Ethics of the Atonement 

justice is satisfied with what mercy brings ; and when 
mercy, prompted by love, furnishes all that justice has a 
right to demand, then, and not till then, can mercy 
"rejoice against judgment,'' while judgment exults in 
mercy ; and thus it is that all things may be reconciled 
through the atonement of Christ. Calvary gives the 
keynote of harmony for earth and heaven. 

Fifth. Through this declaration of His righteousness 
God can now "be just and the justifier of him which 
believeth." 

If, therefore, I accept Jesus Christ as the u Lamb of 

God that taketh away the sin of the world," I may 

lovingly demand salvation upon the ground of justice. 

u If we confess our sins, He is faithful and 

JUSTICE AND m \ 

mercy work just to forgive." Forgiveness is now de- 
manded by justice as well as granted by 
mercy. u Mercy and Truth are met together, Righteous- 
ness and Peace have kissed each other." Justice de- 
mands what mercy delights to give. There is no war 
between the attributes of God. To save a sinner without 
atonement would destroy His righteous rule — would, 
indeed, be the abdication of His throne. But now that 
atonement is made and justice satisfied, for Him to re- 
fuse to save the sinner who comes to Him pleading pro- 
pitiation through the blood of Christ would be again to 
abdicate the throne, which is founded upon the right- 
eousness which demands that the sinner whose debt of 
sin has been paid, and the payment accepted, shall be 
acquitted. God's throne would fall if a sinner who 
refuses atonement should be saved ; and God's throne 
would just as certainly fall if a christian who has accepted 
atonement should be lost. The foundation of both 
heaven and hell is the righteousness of God. 

And yet, let us never forget that back of all this is the 



Ethics of the Atonement 

love of God. We believe it can be proved that hell 
itself, terrible as it is, is the expression of God's love. 
We leave this fact to another sermon, while we dwell 
love back now upon the love which gives heaven here 
of all an( j hereafter through the atonement of Christ. 

God does not love us because Christ died ; Christ died 
because God loved. " God so loved the world that He 
gave His only begotten Son." Back of Calvary is love. 
It was love that led to the satisfaction of justice. 

This atonement is general. u He is the propitiation 
for our sins : and not for ours only, but also for the sins 
of the whole world." (I John ii : 2.) And yet it is 
.^ „„™ limited; for we read in I Timothy iv : 10, 

ATONEMENT ' % . 

general " We trust in the living God, who is the 

Saviour of all men, especially of those that 
believe." The reservoir has water enough for all, but 
only those who are willing to drink can have their thirst 
quenched. Salvation is sufficient for all, but efficient 
only for those who believe. The atonement is world- 
wide in its extent, but in its efficacy only so wide as those 
who will accept it. u There is a wideness in God's 
mercy like the wideness of the sea 5" but there is a nar- 
rowness in God's justice like the narrowness of the ship 
on the sea. All who would cross this sea into the haven 
of rest must submit to the limitations of the ship. Its 
timbers are made of justice and love, worked together in 
beautiful harmony. One who trusts himself to the sea 
without the ship will fail as surely as one who trusts 
himself to the ship without the sea. u What God hath 
joined together let not man put asunder." 

This brings us to the heart of our subject, and we can 
best develop it by answering two questions : 

First, Is IT RIGHT FOR ONE PERSON TO SUFFER FOR 

another ? " Ought Christ to have suffered ? " Ought 
a mother to suffer for her child ? 



Ethics of the Atonement 

Ought friend to suffer for friend? Damon became 
hostage for his friend Pythias, who, after being con- 
demned to death, was permitted to go home and see his 
damon and loved ones before the execution. Before the 
pythias return of Pythias, Damon was heard to ex- 
press the wish that he might be permitted to die for his 
friend ; and when, to the surprise of his enemies, Pythias 
appeared the day before the execution, there was a gen- 
erous dispute between the two friends as to which one 
should be permitted to die for the other. It is to the 
credit of the tyrant Dionysius that his heart was melted 
by such an exhibition of the self-sacrificing spirit of 
friendship, so that he pardoned Pythias and expressed a 
desire to be partner in their friendship. Has any one 
from that day to this been mean enough to blame Dio- 
nysius for admiring the devotion which made Damon 
willing to die for his friend? The story has been 
woven into poetry, and is to-day an inspiration to noble 
minds . 

A blacksmith in Germany was seated in the village 
postoffice, surrounded by his neighbors' children, when 
a rabid dog appeared in the door, and the noble man, 
the village forgetful of self, throttled the beast in the 
blacksmith g r jp Q f ^is s t ur dy hands, but not until the 
virus had passed into his own blood. Will any one deny 
him the right thus to risk his life, and die, if need be, for 
his neighbors' children? The villagers put flowers on 
his grave every day. 

I saw written on the pedestal of a soldier's monument 
in Manchester, N. H., the words u Dulce et decorum 
est pro patria mori." Was that a mistake? Is it sweet 
and honorable to die for one's country ? If so, we have 
admitted that patriots have a right to suffer and die for 
others. Every granite stone in Bunker Hill Monument 
echoes that sentiment. 



Ethics of the Atonement 

Regulus, the brave Roman general, refused to advise 
the Roman Senate to accept the terms of Carthage, and 
regulus and went back with the envoys to be tortured 
curtius £ death. Has any one, ancient or modern, 

been base enough to blame him for it ? 

The legend of Mettus Curtius sacrificing himself that 
the fissure in the Roman Forum might be closed has 
been used by statesman and orator to inspire the young 
to deeds of valor. Has one word ever been written in 
condemnation of the spirit that prompted his act ? 

A regiment of Austrian soldiers were guilty of mutiny, 
and each man of them, by the laws of war, had forfeited 
his right to live. The court-martial decided that only 
the Austrian every tenth man should be shot, and the 
soldier victims were chosen by lot. The lot fell 

upon an old soldier whose son pushed him aside, and 
stepping into his place died in his stead. The soldiers 
of Austria to this day praise him for the deed. 

Dr. Guthrie is responsible for the story that in a 
u ragged" school a pale, half -invalid boy had violated a 
rule of the school, which demanded that he should be 
the BOY punished by receiving on his back a certain 
HER0 number of stripes ; and w r hen he came up for 
punishment, a rough, healthy little fellow stepped up 
beside him and offered to take chastisement for him. 
The teacher administered the chastisement to the 
strong boy, that honor of the law in his school might 
be maintained, and the brave little fellow who bore it 
became the hero of the school and of every home where 
the story was told. Who will deny that he had a right 
thus willingly and lovingly to suffer for another? No 
one had a right to compel him to do it, but no one could 
deny him the right to follow the promptings of his loving 
and sympathetic heart. 



Ethics of the Atonement 

It is well known that Bronson Alcott, the Concord 
philosopher, maintained discipline in his school by 
requiring disobedient students to punish him for their 
disobedience. 

In many a European prison is the record u Fine paid 

by John Howard;" u Debt paid by John Howard." 

John Howard chose to set prisoners free by paying their 

fines and debts, and I have not heard of a 
JOHN _ ' 

Howard's magistrate who denied him the right to do so. 

WAY . 

Now, shall men have the right to do what we 
deny to Jesus Christ ? Shall the mother suffer for her 
child, shall friend suffer for friend, shall the patriot 
suffer for his country, shall the soldier suffer for his 
comrade, shall the student suffer for his classmate and 
receive the praise of all, while we deny to Jesus the right 
to suffer for those he loves more than mother ever loved 
her children, or friend his friend, or patriot his country, 
or soldier his comrade, or student his classmate ? 

Second. Is it right for a person to receive 

BENEFIT FROM THE SUFFERING OF ANOTHER? Shall 

the child refuse to be benefitted by the mother's suffer- 
mTO ing? Shall the country refuse to be benefitted 
human by the suffering of its patriot soldiers ? If it be 
true that soldiers do wrong in dying for others, and 
that those for whom they die ought not to be benefitted 
by their sufferings, let us go to Bunker Hill and tear 
down that monument ; let us go to Washington and 
raze to the ground that white marble pyramid which 
commemorates the man who suffered the pangs of 
hunger and cold at Valley Forge. To adopt the claim 
of Theosophy that one should not receive benefit from 
the sufferings of another is to turn mankind, sooner or 
later, into leeches and hyenas, for if I should not be bene- 
fitted by the suffering of another, I, of course, should 



Ethics of the Atonement 

not suffer for another. My business, then, is to look 
after myself, and all the sweet ministries of loving sac- 
rifice for others give place to greedy self-seeking. There 
is but one step from this to heartless cruelty. 

On the other hand, the spirit of sacrificing love as 
seen in Christ on the Cross, if universally incarnate, 
would make earth a paradise of peace and joy. War 

would then cease ; for if men loved well 
how to . ' 

make earth enough to die for one another, they certainly 
would not kill one another. It would close 
every divorce court ; for if husband and wife loved well 
enough to die for each other, such a thing as unfaithful- 
ness, or even unkindness, would be impossible. It 
would solve the problem of labor and capital ; for if the 
laborer and the capitalist loved well enough to die for 
each other, they certainly would not oppress, or make 
unreasonable demands. It would run every business 
enterprise according to the Golden Rule ; for if all men 
loved well enough to die for one another, there would 
be no lying or cheating to make money. It would be 
easy then to u do unto others as you would have them 
do unto you." And if everbody really believed that 
Jesus died on the cross to bear the chastisement of their 
sins, character would be transformed and this world 
would be heaven. 

Let us look into Bronson Alcott's school, and see how 

it worked there. " One day," says Mr. Alcott, u I 

called up before me a pupil eight or ten years of age, 

who had violated an important regulation of 

BRONSON r . & 

alcott's the school. All the pupils were looking on, 
and they knew what the rule of the school 
was, I put the ruler into the hand of that offending 
pupil ; I extended my hand and told him to strike. 
The instant the boy saw my extended hand and heard 



Ethics of the Atonement 

my command to strike, I saw a struggle begin in his 
face. A new light sprang up in his countenance, a new 
set of shuttles seemed to be weaving a new nature within 
him. I kept my hand extended, and the school was in 
tears. The boy struck once, and he himself burst into 
tears. I constantly watched his face, and he seemed in 
a bath of fire which was giving him a new nature. He 
had a different mood toward the school and toward the 
violated law. The boy seemed transformed by the idea 
that I should take chastisement in place of his punish- 
ment. He went back to his seat, and ever after was 
one of the most docile of all the pupils in that school, 
though he had been at first one of the rudest." 

I have heard of a father whose little son was given to 
lying, and he could not be cured of the vice by counsel, 
reward or punishment. One day, the father said, u My 
IN the d ear boy, you have sinned again to-day by telling 
home a u e ^ anc [ (j y OU think that ten strokes on the 

hand with this rule w r ould be excessive punishment for 
such a lie ? " The hardened little fellow was used to 
such punishment, and he admitted that it would not. 
" Well, then," said the father, " I have decided to take 
the punishment for you, and now take this rod and 
strike my hand with all your might." The astonished 
boy was loth to do it, but as the father insisted, he began 
to strike. " Strike harder," said the father, " for so 
great a sin as lying deserves more punishment than that.' 5 
When the boy saw the great blue welts begin to appear 
in the hand, he dropped the rule, and rushing into his 
father's arms, exclaimed, " Father, I will never tell 
another lie." And he didn't. 

I know a widowed mother who adopted this principle 
of Calvary in dealing with her children, and whenever 
she willingly suffered for her children's disobedience 



Ethics of the Atonement 

they were so overwhelmed with the sense of guilt that 
they refrained from transgressing again. Punishment for 
one's own sin often hardens the nature, and this fact 
makes hell a poor reformatory. But suffering for an- 
other's sin, prompted by willing love, develops the 
noblest that is in us and makes the strongest possible 
appeal to the sinner. 

44 A friend of mine," says Dr. Mackay, u had been 
told that the Word of Life was contained in the Bible. 
He went quietly home, and he said, 4 If it is there I'll 
rxn iuta^av.o find it.' He began w^ith Genesis. He could 

DR. MACKAY* S » 

friend not see anything about salvation in the first 

chapter. He went to the second chapter, and the third, 
and all through Genesis, and then got into Exodus, but 
he could not understand it a bit. Then when he came 
to Leviticus and all the beasts of sacrifice, he thought 
4 1 cannot see what is meant by this.' But he was not 
to be beaten, he was wanting salvation, and he was told 
it was there. He went on from there until, in due 
course of time, he reached that good evangelical chapter, 
Isaiah liii. He read carefullv until he came to the 
words, 6 By his stripes we are healed.' 4 That is it,' 
said he, ; I have it now ; we are healed ; I am healed. 
There is no hoping or wishing, or perhaps — we are 
healed.' And then he began to rejoice in the complete 
salvation through Jesus Christ." 

A dying man said to me last night, "Jesus Christ on 
the Cross is the only one that can do me any good now." 
Living or dying we need forgiveness and cleansing, 
which are ours only through the atonement which Christ 
made on Calvary. 

A soldier stood on a street of Vienna sawing the strings 
of an old violin that he might earn a little money for 
himself and those dependent upon him. The crowd 



. Ethics of the Atonement 

passed by with but little notice of him or his futile 
attempt at music. One day a stranger took from him 
his violin and began at once to make such exquisite 
bucher'S music that the crowd gathered and poured 
noble act th e i r money into the old soldier's box. "Empty 
it into your pockets," said the stranger, "and let them fill 
it again," while he continued to fill the air with sweetest 
melody. The box w^as filled again, and then the stranger, 
returning the violin, disappeared in the crowd. "Who 
was that? Who was that?" was asked, and the reply 
came from one of the bystanders : ' 6 That was Bucher, 
the most famous violinist of the realm," and his name 
was applauded by the crowd. 

Now, had Bucher the right to take this poor soldier's 
place, and by his own musical merit relieve him of his 
poverty? Who w'ill deny it? Had the old soldier the 
right to let Bucher take his place, while he thanked him 
for his sympathetic and loving deed ? Would you blame 
the soldier for being extravagant in his praise of the man 
who, without invitation or promise of reward, took his 
place and supplied his need? 

Something like that, but more, Jesus did for us. He 
took our place, and by the keynote of his own sacrificing 
love he brought the justice of God into harmony with 
his mercv, while at the same time he awakens in our 
souls the music of gratitude, and makes the discord of 
sin give way to the harmony of righteousness. Let us 
yield without resistance to the magnetic charm of the 
music of God's love that comes to us through Christ on 
the Cross, and it will not onlv draw us to Him for salva- 
tion, but every day it will make it easy to "draw near 
with a true heart in full assurance of faith." 



Ethics of the Doctrine of Heaven 

and Hell 

"These shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the 
righteous into life eternal. " Matt, xxv : 46. 

" Now he is comforted, but thou art tormented. Luke xvi : 25. 



"/^ONE FOREVER," says Dr. Hillis, " is Dante's 
^"^ Inferno and Michael Angelo's Last Judgment." 
And yet within less than a mile of the pulpit from which 
these words were spoken infernos fearful as Dante's 
were in full blast, and judgments upon sin and sinners 
more terrible than Michael Angelo's were being exe- 
cuted. S-I-N spells " hell " in this world and the next. 
It is no nightmare of mediaeval darkness. It is not the 
hallucination of a disordered brain. It is a fact which 
anyone with open eyes must see. The smoke of tor- 
ment ascends here from the brothel, the dive, the saloon, 
the drunkard's home, the divorce court, the prison, the 
electric chair, the gallows, the madhouse, the gambling 
den, and the lives of men and women who are burning 
in the furnace of their own lusts. It may not suit our 
aesthetic tastes, but our dislike of the situation does not 
affect the fact. ** I hate the very thought of hell," ex- 
claimed a cultured lady. So do I. And I hate the very 
thought of murders, adulteries, thefts, jails and electric 
chairs, but my hatred does not destroy the facts. I hate 
snakes, but in spite of my hatred they continue to crawl 
and hiss and bite. 

The first text implies not only the existence but the 
RIGHTNESS of hell. "These shall go away into 



The Doctrine of Heaven and Hell 

everlasting punishment." They are not driven. No 
high sheriff of the universe is needed to arrest them and 
by force cast them into hell. When the wicked, in the 
the right- flashlight of the Judgment Day, shall see 
ness of hell themselves and their sins as they are, they 
will accept everlasting punishment as just retribution. 
Their sense of justice will approve it. It would appear 
to them an incongruous thing for God to take them to 
heaven, as incongruous indeed as it would appear to a 
guilty, impenitent criminal if the President of the United 
States, instead of sending him to the penitentiary, as he 
deserves, should take him into the White House as an 
associate for his wife and children. 

And, sad to say, the wicked, if they act then as many 
of them do now, will choose hell rather than heaven. I 
know men who prefer hell to heaven. A heaven on 
some people earth is open to them every day, but they 
prefer hell turn from £ t j nto the ^ell of sinful indul- 
gence. I could take you to a home in a great city 
which is an embryonic heaven, in which are love, and 
purity, and beauty, and music, and all the happiness 
which these things can bring. But a son born in that 
home cares not for it. One evening, as he starts out for 
a night of debauch, his gray-haired mother stands in the 
door with outstretched arms, gently obstructing the way 
and begging him to remain with her. u My dear boy," 
she says, '* stay with us and do not go to that gambling 
den to-night." Two sisters come out and add their 
loving entreaties. u Please stay with us, brother. We 
will read to you, play with you, do anything you wish, 
if you will only stay with us to-night." But he pushes 
aside his mother, and jerking away from the loving 
clasp of a sister's hand he goes into the hell of sin, 
where he remains of his own accord and burns in a 



The Doctrine of Heaven and Hell 

furnace of lust for more than a week. When the police 
find him he is well-nigh consumed in body, mind 
and soul. The hell of sinful indulgence, with all its 
horrors of darkness, is more attractive to him than a 
heaven of purity, light and love. And the man with 
rebellion against God and love of sin in his heart would 
choose to go. away into everlasting punishment rather 
than enter into heaven with its holiness and service. 
And one can hardly blame him. Heaven is a prepared 
place for a prepared people, and if unprepared for 
heaven it would be to him a hell. 

Now, is it right that there should be a hell for the 
wicked and a heaven for the righteous? Can the hell 
of the Bible be defended on ethical grounds? I believe 
it can be, and for the following reasons : 

First. IT IS RIGHT TO SEPARATE THE 
BAD FROM THE GOOD. It is well known that 
three Greek words in the New Testament are translated 
three words " hell." One of them is " Hades," which 
for hell means simply the world of the dead, in- 

cluding both bad and good. Another word is the Greek 
"Tartarus," which meant in ancient mythology the 
under-world of darkness. And by using this word the 
Holy Spirit would have us understand that, however 
mistaken were the pagans in many things, they were 
right in believing that the bad would at death go to an 
under-world of darkness. And this is merely the stamp 
of God's approval upon the universal consciousness of 
mankind. All people, savage and civilized, believe that 
what they regard as wrong should be punished. They 
differ as to their standards, but they agree that the bad, 
as they know it, deserves punishment, and the good, as 
they know it, deserves reward. 

The third word translated "hell" is "Gehenna," which 



The Doctrine of Heaven and Hell 

was the name given to the valley of Hinnom, near Jeru- 
salem, into which the garbage of the city was cast and 
there burned. At any time of day or night the fires, 
with their ascending smoke, could be seen in this valley. 
Jesus makes it the symbol of hell, u where the worm 
dieth not and the fire is not quenched." 

Now, is it right for a city to have a valley of Hinnom 
into which the refuse shall be cast? or should the city 
leave its refuse to decay in its streets and in the cellars 
„.„„.„„ ,^„. of its houses, filling the air w r ith con- 

THE GARBAGE IDEA . ' & 

tagion and death ? There are no two 
opinions on this subject among civilized people. Every 
garbage barrel, therefore, is an argument for hell. 
Those who refuse life in God become u refuse " in char- 
acter sooner or later, and in the nature of things must be 
removed to a place apart. 

A cemetery is a necessity. The bodies of the dead 
must not be left in the homes of the living. A little 
child died in the family of a former parish, and the poor 
mother, crazed with grief, would not consent to its 
burial. She stood like Rizpah over its little lifeless 
body, and would not allow undertaker or husband to 
touch it. After a week of such heart-rending experi- 
ence, the husband was compelled to remove her by force 
to another room, while some friends went with the little 
form to the cemetery. To have kept the dead with the 
living would have been unkindness to the living and 
have done the dead no good. And thus every cemetery 
is an argument for hell. The spiritually dead soul is 
like a dead body, in that it is in a state of moral putrefac- 
tion and carries with it the deadly contagion of sin. If 
it refuses to receive life it must of necessity be placed 
apart with its spiritually dead companions. 

Second. IT IS RIGHT TO PUNISH SIN. This, 



The Doctrine of Heaven and Hell 

as we have seen, is universally accepted. There is a 
natural and a positive punishment. Sin brings its own 
punishment, while a government has a right to punish 
right TO sin when it develops into crime. A man kills 
punish another, and as a natural result suffers terrible 
remorse of conscience. But remorse of conscience does 
not satisfy the demands of the law, for there has been 
not only sin against his own soul, but crime against the 
commonwealth. Sin is its own Nemesis, and yet there 
is the wrath of God revealed against unrighteousness. 
It is the wrath of the Lamb, more terrible, indeed, than 
the wrath of the lion — the wrath of gentleness against 
brutality, of kindness against cruelty, of chastity against 
unchastity, of truth against falsehood, of love against 
hatred, of holiness against sin, of light against darkness, 
of health against disease. Such is the wrath of the 
Lamb. It needs to be restated that there is something: 
in God for sinners to fear. He is no moral weakling 
who, prompted by soft sentimentalism, permits crim- 
inals to destroy His righteous government. The preach- 
ing of this God of putty has been long enough filling 
hell, here and hereafter, with victims. 

And yet God need not interfere otherwise than to 
protect the interests of His loyal subjects and obedient 
children. Sin left to itself makes hell. " Wickedness," 
says Isaiah, " burnetii as a fire." It is sin that heats 

" The dungeon horrible on all sides round, 
As one great furnace flame, yet from those flames 
No light, but rather darkness visible." 

Take the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, and 
you will see that the fires of torment have flames of 
Memory, Reason, Imagination and Conscience. "Son, 
remember." Memory is immortal and will pass into the 
future freighted with its burden of neglected duties and 



The Doctrine of Heaven and Hell 

privileges. The rich man uses the word " therefore, " 
which shows that Reason is immortal and lives to appre- 
ciate the facts of memory • This man in Hades requests 
what makes Abraham to startle his five brethren by the 
the flames return f Lazarus from the dead, and this 
shows that Imagination is also immortal to fan the 
flames of memory and reason. And every line of the 
parable bears witness to the fact that Conscience is- 
immortal, with its sting of remorse. 

Eliminate, if you please, all thought of literal fire,, 
but there is no mitigation of suffering. I verily believe 
that there are persons in this world who suffer so^ 
worse than intensely from an evil conscience, in the 
literal fire names f memory, reason and imagination,. 

that to thrust their hand into a furnace of fire and burn 
it off would be a temporary relief. The fires which 
burn the soul are hotter than the fires which consume 
the body c Pollok's description of hell in his " Course 
of Time ?? makes one shudder, and yet if you will divest 
his words of coarse literalism and give them the 
symbolic meaning he intended, you are compelled to 
acknowledge their truth. He says : 

" Through all that dungeon of unfading nre 
I saw most miserable beings walk, 
Burning continually, yet unconsumed ; 
Forever wasting, yet enduring still ; 
Dying perpetually, yet never dead. 
Some wandered lonely in the desert flames, 
And some in fell encounter fiercely met, 
With curses loud, and blasphemies that made 
The cheek of Darkness pale." 

I know that such a hell exists, for I have been there*, 
I have seen men and women on this earth " burning 
continually, yet unconsumed ; forever wasting, yet en- 
during still; dying perpetually, yet never dead." It is, 
but another way of expressing what the Bible means by 



_« 



The Doctrine of Heaven and Hell 

the u bottomless pit " — forever falling without striking 
bottom, forever sinking in the moral scale, forever 
growing worse and yet not becoming so bad that you 
cannot grow worse still — everlasting degeneration ! 
The soul, with infinite capacity for good or evil, chooses 
the evil and develops downward through eternity. 
Terrible thought ! And yet the fact is in progress 
before our eyes. Men and women in this city are to- 
day away down the sides of the bottomless pit, and 
growing worse and worse every hour. Death will not 
retard, but in the worse environment of a place apart 
will accelerate the downward course. 

A coarse wit asked an old preacher where he would 
get all the brimstone for the making of an orthodox hell, 
and his wise reply was u Every man will furnish his 
own brimstone." 

Third. IT IS RIGHT TO HAVE DEGREES 
OF PUNISHMENT. This principle is admitted by 
every court of justice in every civilized land. " That 
degrees of servant which knew his lord's will, and 
punishment p re pared not himself, neither did according 
to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes ; but he 
that knew not, and did things worthy of stripes, shall be 
beaten with few stripes." Luke xii : 47, 48. " Ever- 
lasting" does not mean " equal " or u infinite." Ever- 
lasting punishment will certainly follow everlasting sin- 
ning, the degree of punishment being in proportion to 
the sin. It is reasonable to conclude that if a man will 
not repent in this world, with an environment of good 
and evil, he will not repent in the next world, where 
there is environment of only evil. No father would try 
to reform a wayward boy by sending him to the vilest 
part of a city, where he would associate only with degen- 
erates. Sensible people do not try to wash themselves 



The Doctrine of Heaven and Hell 

by wallowing in filth. God does for every person in 
this world all that infinite love, wisdom and power can 
do for a free moral agent. If a man chooses sin rather 
than righteousness, infinite love, wisdom and power 
cannot keep hell out of him or him out of hell. If he 
chooses death instead of life, he must submit to the 
process of moral putrefaction and abide by the law of 
necessity that the dead and the living must, in the final 
adjustment of affairs, be kept apart. 

As to heaven, it is not difficult to convince men that 
there is a heaven, though I verily believe that there is 
more proof outside of the Bible that there is a hell than 
^,^,™ that there is a heaven. Sin is more in evi- 

EASY TO 

believe m dence than righteousness. Count the words 

HEAVEN 

in any large dictionary, and you will see that 
those defining the bad are more numerous than those 
defining the good. Read the daily papers, and most of 
the big headlines are proof that there is a hell on earth. 
And yet men are willing to delude themselves into the 
fancy that a little virtue deserves heaven. Why, then, 
deny the very existence of hell? They even demand of 
God that because He created them He should take them 
to heaven, though they carry with them a hell of in- 
iquity. Forgetting that heaven is a prepared place for a 
prepared people, they would compel God to do the 
impossible — of making them happy in a place for which 
they are not prepared. They refuse life, and then 
demand that they shall enjoy life. They refuse holiness, 
and demand that they shall receive the reward of holi- 
ness. They refuse reconciliation with God, and demand 
that they shall live in harmony with Him. They refuse 
to let heaven come into them, and demand that God 
shall take them into heaven. Their demand really is that 
God shall make no difference between light and dark- 



The Doctrine of Heaven ci7id Hell 

ness, disease and health, death and life, anarchy and 
law, the cemetery and the home, the garbage heap and 
the garden. And yet they must acknowledge : 

(i) That it is right to separate the good from the 
bad. Every home is built on that idea. It is a garden 
enclosed. It is a sacred place of purity and peace, 
good separate separated from the vice and turmoil of the 
from bad outside world. It is a holy-of -holies, with 

a veil between it and even the gaze of outsiders. It is a 
fountain of pure water protected from contamination by 
the laws of every civilized land. The English adage, 
U A man's home is his castle," which he has a right to 
defend against all intruders, is based on equity. To 
open the home to the inflow of evil is to destroy it. 
Jesus calls heaven " my Father's house," and He prom- 
ises to take us to it by and by. Now, will our Father 
destroy this home by opening it to the evil of the uni- 
verse? The home idea demands that heaven shall be a 
place apart from contaminating evil, and all the symbols 
of Scripture which describe it confirm this idea. u The 
Lamb is the light thereof," and there is no evil in that 
light. The " streets of gold," the u gates of pearl," the 
"walls of jasper," the "foundation of precious stones," 
all suggest the exclusion of evil. u Without are dogs, 
and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and 
idolaters." " There shall in no wise enter into it any- 
thing that defileth." 

(2) It is right to reward faithfulness. It is not right 
to reward gifts, but the improvement of gifts ; not 
capacity, but the use and development of capacity. The 
right to parable of the talents teaches that there is no 
reward reward for having talents, but only for increas- 
ing them. The man with two talents received the same 
reward as the man with five, because the improvement 



The Doctrine of Heaven a?id Hell 

was the same ; and the man with one talent would 
have received as great reward as the man with two if he 
had made the same improvement. Why should God 
reward a man for capacity or opportunity which He 
gave without asking the man's permission? But it is 
right that He should reward for improvement of capacity 
or opportunity. Everyone is responsible, not for what 
God has given, but for the use he makes of the gifts. 
Heaven, here and hereafter, is the result of faithfulness. 
Bigness does not count with God. Two-fifths of a cent 
given by a poor widow is more than all the abundance 
of the rich, because behind it was a faithful, self-sacri- 
ficing spirit. 

Memory, Reason, Imagination, Conscience, these 
immortal faculties of the soul, cleansed by the blood and 
mastered by the life of Christ, will carry a heaven with 
them into the future, and this heaven will continue 
because faithfulness will continue. If one has been 
faithful in a world of evil and good, it is reasonable to 
infer that he will remain faithful in the u Father's 
house," where there is only good. Everlasting faithful- 
ness means everlasting reward. And yet we should 
remember that our faithfulness from first to last depends 
upon the faithfulness of God. '* I change not, there- 
fore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed. ,, " Under- 
neath are the everlasting arms." Salvation is altogether 
of grace, while reward is altogether of works. God 
gives us life through Christ, but we must gain the 
crown of life through faithfulness. 

(3) It is right that there should be degrees of reward, 
though there are no degrees of salvation. Every man 
is saved completely or not saved at all. Life makes the 
difference between a corpse and a man, though in 
men there are degrees of life. We go to heaven on 



The Doctrine of Heaven and Hell 

the merit of Jesus Christ, but the measure of happiness 
in heaven will depend upon the faithfulness here which 
will develop our capacity for joy. " Every cup will be 
degrees of full, but not of the same size." Each one 
reward -vvill be as happy as he can be, though some 
will be absolutely happier than others. In the descrip- 
tion of heaven, which we have in the book of Revela- 
tion, the martyrs who were faithful unto death have 
the highest place. u Our light affliction, which is but 
for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and 
eternal weight of glory, while w r e look not at the things 
which are seen, but at the things which are not seen." 
These words describe the process which makes heaven 
in us while on earth. The affliction to which he refers 
was the result of faithfulness to Christ, and such afflic- 
tion is never an enemy fighting against us, but always a 
servant working for us a weight of character. We are 
light- w r eights until the pressure of affliction for Christ's 
sake has given us stamina and solidity, and this weight 
of glory is eternal. Character thus formed lasts forever. 
It has capacity for great enjoyment. Suffering for 
Christ digs in the soul deep channels of capacity through 
which the waters of joy forever flow. u Enter thou 
into the joy of thy lord " is the welcome of Jesus to 
everyone who has welcomed the Lord of Joy into his 
soul and thus received capacity for the enjoyment and 
the employment of heaven. 

This biblical doctrine of heaven and hell has great 
ethical value. The fact that sin brings punishment is a 
deterrent to coarse and selfish natures. It is not the 
ethical highest motive, but it is the only one that can 
value influence the coarse and selfish. It is better for 
a man criminally inclined to be kept from crime by fear 
of prison or the electric chair than for him to go on in 



The Doctrine of Heaven and Hell 

crime, heedless of consequences. Paul says, "Knowing 
the terror of the Lord, we persuade men." He knew 
that some men can be influenced only by such terror. 
Jesus uses the doctrine of hell as a motive to repen- 
tance. 

If you have a sin as much a part of you and as dear 
to you as your eye or your hand, you had better give it 
up, for "it is better for thee to enter into life with one 
a motive to e y e or one band than having tw T o eyes or 
repentance two hands to be cast into hell fire." I am 

aw T are that this motive is to a large extent absent from 
our pulpits, and this may account for the fact that so 
few pulpits are influencing the masses of the people. 
If there were more preaching of hell in the pulpit there 
would be less of hell in the community. We are not 
saved by fear of punishment. It is the magnetic power 
of the uplifted Christ which draws all men, but the 
terrible results of sin have shocked many a soul into 
reflection which led to Christ. A sight of future fires 
makes men seek to quench the present fires of sin that 
may be consuming them in soul and body. To suppress 
these severe truths in deference to the soft sentimental- 
ism of liberal minds who reject the Bible and the facts 
of sin about them is not only unfaithfulness to God but 
unkindness to the multitude, who need the restraining 
influence of fear. 

It is not difficult to prove that the hope of heaven 
makes men better. If there is reward for faithfulness, 
one can afford to practice self-denial, and even suffer 
persecution, rather than prove unfaithful. Paul said, 
"I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are 
not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall 
be revealed in us." If these sufferings, borne pa- 
tiently, make character that will shine to the glory of 



The Doctrine of Heaven and Hell 

God through eternity, I can afford to bear them, that the 
glory may be greater. The patriotic soldier endures the 
march, the bivouac, the hunger, the cold, the wound 
and the sickness, cheered by the hope that all this will 
end in victory. Even the perfect Christ u for the joy 
that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the 
shame." Only ignoble minds have contempt for the 
rewards of righteous endurance. One should do right 
because it is right, and refuse to do wrong because it is 
wrong ; but even so noble a motive as that will be 
inspired to enthusiasm in doing right by the conscious- 
ness that right-doing is rewarded by the approval of God 
and lives beyond the act in the character it makes. 
There is a heaven in the hope of heaven. 

It is a stupendous fact that God leaves us to choose 
between heaven and hell. "I set before you this day 
the way of life and the way of death." In choosing sin 
we may we choose hell. In choosing righteousness we 
choose c hoose heaven. Sin needs no helper in making a 
hell ; for "sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death." 
The gravitation will be downward until we find our 
own place. Jesus Christ is the Saviour from sin to 
righteousness, and when we accept Him there comes 
into us a life that gravitates upward until we reach His 
plane of character. With the hell of the Bible before 
us, the death of Christ on the cross has new meaning, for 
it shows from what we are saved ; and with the heaven 
of the Bible before us it has new meaning still, for it 
shows to what we are saved. The meaning of Calvary 
is measured by the distance between the bottomless pit 
and the topless height. 

" Choose I must, and soon must choose 
Holiness or heaven lose ; 
While what heaven loves I hate, 
Shut for me is heaven's gate. 



The Doctrine of Heaven and Hell 

" Endless sin means endless woe ; 
Into endless sin I go, 
If my soul from reason rent 
Takes from sin its final bent. 

" As the stream its channel grooves, 
And within that channel moves, 
So doth habit's deepest tide 
Groove its bed, and there abide. 

" Light obeyed increaseth light, 
Light resisted bringeth night ; 
Who shall give me will to choose 
If the love of light I lose? 

" Speed my soul ; this instant yield ; 
Let the Light its sceptre wield ; 
While thy God prolongeth grace, 
Haste thee toward His holy face I" 



Ethics of Business 

" Not slothful in business ; fervent in spirit ; serving the Lord." Rom. xii : n. 

"DUSINESS may be defined in a loose way as what- 
ever one does for the purpose of making money. 
An Italian knife-grinder whom I met on the street corner 
informed me that he had been in the knife-grinding 
business about twenty years ; and he was as truly a 
business man as the princely merchant or millionaire 
steel manufacturer. Some organ grinders, arrested for 
vagrancy, proved to the satisfaction of a New York 
court that they were in legitimate business which re- 
quired close attention and hard work. The fruit-dealer 
on the sidewalk, the peddler with the pack on his back, 
trudgi ig through the country, the stone-breaker who 
uses his hammer on the street, the hod-carrier who 
climbs the ladder, the lawyer preparing his brief, the 
architect drawing his plans, the carpenter plying his 
trade, the banker investing his money, and the merchant 
buying and selling his goods are business men, each one 
using his own mental, physical and financial capital. 

There are some vocations which cannot be defined as 
business in this sense, because their purpose is not to 
make money. Agassiz declared that he did not have 
time to make money ; he was too intent upon scientific 
discovery. A preacher, though he receives money for 
his support, if he be a true prophet of God, does not 
allow the desire for money to influence his utterances or 
his life-work. Think of Moses, Elijah or Paul using 



Ethics of Business 

their positions for the purpose of accumulating money 
and trimming their utterances and policy with a view to 
increasing their bank accounts ! It is unthinkable. Not 
the preacher's * na t the desire to make money is ignoble ; 
temptation ^he ignobility consists in subjecting the 
higher to the lower, in allowing the incidental to control 
the essential, in being mastered by a selfish motive where 
unselfishness should be the law of life. The preacher's 
business is to speak and live the word of God, whether 
it costs or pays ; to make it pay when it ought to cost is 
to prostitute his calling. It is better, therefore, it seems 
to me, that all ministers should keep themselves untram- 
meled by money-making schemes. The temptation is 
sometimes hard to resist. Money is needed for so many 
things, and the minister's popularity has a money value. 
Insurance companies bidding for popular favor, stock 
companies seeking investors, and real estate speculators 
have learned that the name of a preacher on a board of 
managers is worth money, and they are willing to pay 
him for it. He need not give his time ; all they want is 
the influence of his name, and he will thus be helping a 
good business, while at the same time he is receiving a 
neat little income. The temptation is subtle, but he had 
better not yield if he prizes his vocation as a minister of 
Christ. I heard D. L. Moody say that more preachers 
had been ruined by entering into money-making schemes 
than by any other one cause, and he had opportunities 
for very wide observation. Many pastors and evange- 
lists seem to have lost their hold upon God and man 
through financial transactions. Let men endowed of God 
with capacity for making money give their time and 
strength to it, realizing that they may thus be laborers 
together with God, but let us who are called into the 
ministry of reconciliation give ourselves wholly to it, 



Ethics of Business 

suffering, if need be, the limitations of poverty rather 
than risk the more serious limitations of an unsavory 
reputation. Some eagles of the pulpit have had their 
wings clipped by the money-getting spirit; and some 
who are not eagles have become so weighted by it that 
they cannot run with success the ministerial race. 

Our subject this morning deals with business in the 
narrow sense of making money by labor, physical and 
mental. In this kind of business labor and capital are 
capital always friendly. Capitalists may be hostile 
and labor to laborers, and laborers may be hostile to 
capitalists ; but capital is always and everywhere the 
friend of labor, as labor is the friend of capital. The 
railroad corporation may despise the laborers who build 
its roads, but its money is the friend of these laborers. 
The laborers may hate the railroad corporation, but their 
labor is the friend of the corporation. While laborers 
and capitalists engage in war, capital and labor face 
each other pleading for peace, and ready to begin their 
friendly work together as soon as the selfishness and 
anger of men will permit them. Capital needs labor 
and labor needs capital. One cannot do without the 
other. To injure one is to injure the other ; to help one 
is to help the other. 

In considering the ethics of business we need to settle 
three things: (i) What kind of business may one 
engage in? (2) What methods of business are right? 
(3) What motives should control in business life? 

I. The Nature of Business. This may be deter- 
mined by the Scripture u Thou shalt love thy neighbor 
as thyself." A business that enriches us while it works 
harm to our neighbor cannot be right. A business, 
therefore, that depends for success upon pure chance 
cannot be defended upon ethical grounds. Gambling 



Ethics of Business 

bears the relation to robbery that dueling does to mur- 
der. One man meets another on the street and shoots 
him down ; that is murder. Two men agree to meet, 
with their seconds, in the early morning, and shoot at 
each other until one or both are killed ; that also is 
murder. The difference is that in the first case there 
was one murderer ; in the second case there were two. 

One man meets another in a dark alley, and compels 
him to give up his purse ; that is robbery, the essence 
of which is getting something for nothing. Two men 
sit around a table, and agree on the shuffling of cards or 
the throwing of dice to rob each other. In the first case 
there was one robber, in the second case there are two. 
The essence of robbery and gambling is the desire to get 
something for nothing, and whatever depends upon pure 
chance is gambling. 

There is in all business an element of risk, but when 
its success depends upon industry, intelligence and skill, 
the risk is not measured by chance. Success or failure 
then depends upon the wise use of means. When 
means are eliminated and success depends upon luck, 
the gambler's feverish unrest takes the place of the 
toiler's patient work. This desire to get money with- 
out earning it is the ruin of many a man. The lucky 
individual is in the long run the most unlucky. Men 
who made their millions in stock gambling have died in 
poverty. A man who at one time could draw his check 
in Chicago for twenty millions was in his old age pro- 
prietor of a junk-shop in New York City, If he had 
begun life in the junk-shop and refrained from gambling, 
he would, doubtless, have had a competency for old 
age. And his poverty of purse was not the saddest 
thing about the old junk-shop keeper. It was plain that 
he had lost all stamina of character, and in disposition 



Ethics of Business 

was a sour, carping misanthrope. Such is the end of 
the gambler. Let the sight of the moral carcasses at 
the foot of this precipice keep us from venturing too 
near its edge. 

A business like the liquor traffic, which makes money 
out of the misery and degradation of others, cannot be 
defended on moral grounds. The plea that others will 
the liquor engage in it and make money if I do not 
traffic would justify theft and murder. The fact that 
the State licenses this iniquity and receives revenue from 
it is the blackest blot on christian civilization. The State 
cannot afford to legitimize a business which is outlawed 
by reason and the conscience of good men. To continue 
to do so will be to change glorious destiny into fearful 
doom. 

And those who are protected by the State in this ini- 
quitous business have begun an aggressive campaign of 
education and advertising. A speaker before a brewers' 
convention some time ago urged the saloon-keepers to 
cultivate appetite by giving drink to boys, saying that 
nickels spent in that way will return dollars in the future. 
The advertising columns of our dailies, the pages of our 
magazines, the bulletin boards of our streets and the 
placards in our trolley cars are now proclaiming the 
merits of alcohol, after science has labelled it a poison 
and philanthropy has pronounced it the scourge of Chris- 
tendom. Men who haye heretofore been at least decent 
enough to be ashamed of their business, while apologiz- 
ing for it on the ground of necessity, are now glorying 
in their shame. Satan is at his old work of transforming 
himself into an angel of light. We must now do more 
than keep our boys out of the saloon. We must defend 
them against the encroachment of the saloon, which would 
thrust its painted face before them at every turn. 



Ethics of Business 

This state of affairs has in it some encouragement. 
The active propagandism of the liquor traffic will wake 
up drowsy christians to a sense of their duty at the ballot- 
box. The bravado of the giant will invite the stone from 
David's sling, and w r e hope to see his prostrate form a 
lifeless corpse on the evening of some election day. 

No conscientious man can make money out of a busi- 
ness which works harm to his neighbor. The man who 
has invested money in the purchase of brewery bonds, 
partners an d draws his big dividends, is about as bad 
in crime as t i ie brewer or saloon-keeper. He is one of 
the pillars of this temple of Bacchus, and the knowledge 
of this fact makes him a caterpillar in the temple of God. 
The church member who rents his property for saloon 
or prostitution purposes is a worse enemy of the cause of 
Christ than the avowed infidel. The "whited sepulchre" 
of his profession does not conceal the "rottenness and 
dead men's bones" of his inner life. To those who 
know his double life his presence in the church of God 
is malodorous and ghastly. If some one should take his 
name from the church roll and write it over the door of 
the saloon and the house of ill-fame, from which he 
gets his rent, it would serve him right. The money he 
places in the collection-box on Sunday is so foul that it 
pollutes every clean dollar it touches. To have it go 
with the widow's mite or the rich man's honest dollar, 
baptized in prayer, is like herding together sheep and 
swine, doves and vultures, demons and angels. The 
church that knowingly uses the devil's money in doing 
the Lord's work will have to pay interest to the devil in 
some way, and it is better not to be under such obliga- 
tion to the Prince of Darkness. The interest will sooner 
or later amount to a mortgage, which the Old Fiend will 
be glad to foreclose. 



Ethics of Business 

The investment in theatre stock is about as bad, for 
the theatre as an institution, despite the occasional clean 
play and player, is in the business of polluting morals. 

To sum it all up in a word, the business of every 
christian man should be able to stand the test of the Ten 
Commandments and the higher law, * ' Thou shalt love 
thy neighbor as thyself." 

II. Methods of Business. The law which rules 
the nature of one's business should also apply to its 
methods, and under this head let us consider four things. 

( i ) Honesty. Paul wrote to the Romans, who lived in 
an atmosphere of diplomatic intrigue, " Provide things 
honest in the sight of all men." There is a universal 
concensus of opinion as to honesty. It means truth in 
word and action. It is the opposite of sham and decep- 
tion. The honest merchant will tell the truth about his 
goods. The honest manufacturer will not put a first- 
class label on a second-class article. A man in a Boston 
inquiry meeting said, "I cannot become a christian, 
because I sell second-class goods with first-class labels." 
And he was right. The poor fellow had sold his immor- 
tal soul at a paltry price, but he was wise enough not to 
try and hide the transaction from God. He refused to 
put his dishonesty under the cloak of religion. 

Honesty also tells the whole truth. A man once said 
to Mr. Moody, " If I become a christian it will bankrupt 
my business. I am a soap manufacturer, and every good 
thing I say about my soap is true ; but there is one thing 
I do not say : it rots the clothes. If I should tell all the 
truth about it nobody would buy it." Let us hope that 
he did not persist in bartering his soul for soap ; but he 
had the true conception of honesty, which demands that 
we shall not act a lie by refusing to tell the whole truth. 

A story with a moral is told of A. T. Stewart's first 



Ethics of Business 

day in business. A clerk told a lady that the colors in 
the calico he sold her would not fade. When she left 
Mr. Stewart said to the clerk, " That woman will find 
A. T. STEWART'S t nat y ou misrepresented those goods, and 
policy after a few days she will return and want 

her money back, and she will be right. I do not want 
my customers deceived as to the quality of goods." 
" Well, Mr. Stewart," replied the clerk, "if that is to 
be your way of doing business, I will seek employment 
elsewhere ; you will not last long." But A. T. Stewart 
did last. However, I have not since heard from that 
clerk. 

Honesty is the best policy, always and everywhere. 
The man who is honest for the sake of policy is not an 
honest man, but he is a shrewd one. He knows what is 
an honest f or his best interests. The man who is honest 
clerk because he is conscientious cannot afford to 

refuse present gain in the hope of larger gain in the 
future, If he seems to fail because he is conscientious, 
his seeming failure will be the stepping-stone to success. 
No financial gain can atone for moral loss when a dis- 
honest act is committed or condoned. Better fail in purse 
and succeed in character than succeed in purse and 
fail in character. A big bank account cannot make 
amends for poverty of manhood, and the dishonest man 
cannot have the consciousness of manliness. The sense 
of meanness will always mar his enjoyment of riches. 
There is more happiness in clean poverty than in pol- 
luted wealth. A young man in a New York jewelry 
store was asked by a lady for a gold ring of eighteen 
carats. He informed her that the best rings they had 
on hand at present were only sixteen carats, and the pro- 
prietor, after the customer had gone, reprimanded him, 
saying, 4 ' That woman does not know the difference 



i 



Ethics of Business 

between sixteen carats and eighteen carats, and you 
should have sold her a ring." " But," answered the 
young man, U I cannot deceive anybody." The pro- 
prietor replied, "Little misrepresentations like that are 
legitimate in business." I presume that the clerk fell 
into the ways of business suggested by his employer, and 
if he became a robber by taking money from the till, that 
proprietor was to blame, for he gave him his first lessons 
in dishonesty. 

Dr. Thain Davidson tells of another young man who, 
in measuring off some silk, noticed a flaw, and frankly 
told the lady customer that the silk would not suit her 
an honest because of the flaw. An old farmer in the 
father country, two days afterward, received a note 
which had in it this sentence : u Your son is not sharp 
enough for business. He will never make a merchant." 
The next train brought the farmer to the great city, and 
he hastened to the store to see what was the matter with 
his boy. When he was informed by the merchant of his 
boy's foolish act in telling the customer of the flaw in 
the silk and thus failing to make a sale, the farmer said, 
u I wish you to know, sir, that I am proud of my boy, 
and would not have wished him to act otherwise than he 
has done. God will provide another opening for him." 
Happy the father who has such a son, and happy the son 
who has been blest with such a father. Conscientiousness 
like that has even a higher money value than a willing- 
ness to lie, by word or silence, to make a few dollars. A 
cashier in a bank was discharged by the president because 
he refused to do what his conscience did not approve, and 
within a few days that same president recommended the 
discharged cashier for a position with a much larger 
salary. " You can depend upon him," he said, u for he 
will not go against his conscience." 



Ethics of Business 

A business man in Boston said to me the other day, u s. 
am bothered with rogues and liars amongst my employees. 
Business would be a delight if I could secure only honest 
men." He was willing to pay for honesty. The super- 
intendent of the Assaying Office in New York City told 
me that most of his employees were christian men, some 
of w r hom had been with him thirty years, and their wages 
were increased because they were known to be perfectly 
reliable. Men who handle gold dust, to be worth any- 
thing at all, must be honest and reliable. 

Young Adam Clark was discharged because he refused 
to stretch a piece of cloth, that he might make it measure 
the required length, and as a result we have u Adam 
Clark's Commentaries on the Bible," a monument of 
learning. If Adam had consented to stretch the cloth, he 
would, doubtless, have remained a clerk, provided he had 
not found his way into the penitentiary. I do not even 
know the name of the merchant who discharged him. 
People are not careful to preserve the names of such men. 

(2) Industry. Some one has said, " Man is an animal 
as lazy as circumstances will permit," and I fear that 
there is too much truth in the saying. Few of us are 
born strenuous. We like our ease. Sleep is popular. 

Laziness is the worst enemy of business life. Thomas 
Edison, when asked for the secret of his success in life, 
replied, u I never look at the clock." Most of us like to 
why short have a clock in full view, so that we may see 
hours? j ust w hen to stop work. We forget that work 

is in itself a blessing. Adam, in his purity, w r as placed 
in a garden, not that he might enjoy flowers and fruits, 
but that he might tend it. The restored Eden, which we 
call heaven, is a place of service. Out of work, even 
here, means out of heaven. A heaven of everlasting 
lounging, for which some orientals sigh, has no place in 



Ethics of Business 

the Scriptures. If the workman wants short hours, that 
he have a change of work from the manual to the mental 
or the spiritual, he deserves the enactment of an eight- 
hour law; but if he wants short hours that he may- 
lounge in the saloon, or even at home, lazily wasting 
time, he would turn a blessing into a curse. A lazy- 
fellow was asked why he slept so late in the morning, 
and he replied, u I am employed hearing counsel. Indus- 
try advises me to get up, and sloth insists that I lie still. 
There are so many reasons, pro and con, that it takes a 
long time to argue the case, and dinner-time may arrive 
before it is settled." Listening to the arguments of sloth 
has wrecked many a life. It is the man who regards the 
case as settled on the side of industry who does anything 
in this world. 

I know that the ability to rest is as important as the 
ability to work. Doing nothing as a business is very 
wearisome. The honest toiler is the sound sleeper, and 
need of t° tne man of strenuous exertion the vacation is 
rest relaxation and strength ; but, in order to relax, 
there must be something to relax. Rest implies industry, 
and industry, more than ability, is the secret of success. 
Sir Isaac Newton insisted that he was not a genius, but 
he did the work of a genius because he had learned the 
secret of persistent application. "My sword is too short," 
said a Spartan soldier to his mother, as he started to battle. 
u Add a step to it" was the reply; and if one will add 
to the short sword of mediocre ability the step of patient 
industry, he will conquer the difficulties that confront 
him in making life a success. u Seest thou a man dili- 
gent in business ; he shall stand before kings, he shall 
not stand before mean men." 

(3) Altruism. Try your business by the Golden Rule, 
which means to live, let live, and help live. The rich 



Ethics of Business 

merchant who would crush the shop-keeper on the oppo- 
site corner by selling his wares at less than cost, deserves 
the malediction of mankind. The trust that would destroy 
a man's business because he will not come into their 
combination is a devil-fish whose slimy tentacles should 
be cut off by law. The trades-union that would compel 
a man to join it, or starve him and his family, is a dia- 
bolical tyranny. The trust and the trades-union have a 
right to organize for the promotion of their own interests, 
but they have no right to compel others, on penalty of 
death or starvation, to come into their ranks. To do so 
is to adopt the methods of the Spanish Inquisition. 

When the rule of gold displaces the Golden Rule 
there is always loss. No amount of financial gain will 
atone for a greedy, grasping disposition, and one need 
golden rule vs. not resist the sense of satisfaction which 
rule of gold j^ f ee j s wne n now and then it is made 

apparent that greed has overreached itself and suffers 
loss in the attempt to rob its neighbors. Several years 
ago, in the oil regions of Pennsylvania, a pastor invested 
his savings in a well which yielded some oil and much 
salt water. A greedy neighbor bought the land adjoining 
his and sank a well, hoping that he would drain off the 
oil from the pastor's well ; but the result was the oppo- 
site of what he expected, for he drained off the salt water 
into his own well, and left the pastor's well to flow freely 
with a good quality of oil. And this is a parable which 
grasping greed needs everywhere to remember. The 
man who would impoverish his neighbor for his own 
enrichment is certain to impoverish himself. Even if 
he should succeed in getting his neighbor's money he 
will impoverish his own soul, and soul poverty is the 
worst of pauperism. 

(4) Morality, The truly altruistic man is moral. He 



Ethics of Business 

lives in right relation with his fellows. And yet it is so 
important that christian men should conduct their busi- 
ness in accordance with sound moral principles that I 
A ruined venture to make a separate division and label 
life j t tc JVIorality.^ Let no moral taint be in the 

nature or method of your business. Professor Drum- 
mond was right when he said that the primary purpose 
of a factory is not to make things but men. The factory 
which makes good shoes and bad men is worse than a 
failure, though it may pay fifty per cent, annual dividend. 
The factory that makes good cloth and bad character is 
a curse to the world. A young man in Philadelphia, who 
was discharged on account of drunkenness and other dis- 
solute habits, wrote the following letter to his employer : 
64 Sir, I came into your service uncorrupt in principles 
and in morals, but the rules of your house required me 
to spend my evenings at places of public entertainment 
and amusement in search of customers. To accomplish 
my work in your service I was obliged to drink with 
them and join with them in their pursuit of pleasure. 
I went with them to the theatre and the billiard table, 
but it was not my choice. I went in your service ; your 
interest required it. I have added thousands of dollars 
to the profits of your trade, but at what expense you now 
see and I know too well. You have become wealthy, 
but I am poor indeed, and now this cruel dismissal from 
your employ is the recompense I receive for a charac- 
ter ruined and prospects blasted in helping to make you 
a rich man." This rich man deserves that the furies of 
a lashing conscience shall follow him through time and 
eternity, if he does not repent and make amends for the 
wrong he did that young man. The young men who are 
reared in christian families, when informed that they are 
expected to do this dirty sort of work, revolt against it, 



Ethics of Business 

but sometimes make the plea of necessity and submit. 
Their finer instincts are like an ivy vine I saw the other 
day which a barber had planted in his large window and 

the revolt was trvm g to niake it grow away from the 
OF conscience jjgj lt j nto t ^ e darkness of his room. He 

had fastened it down along the wall, and when I saw it 
the stem and every leaf was turned toward the light. 
The whole vine was in revolt against such treatment. 
Many a young man with christian instincts does revolt 
against the efforts of his employers to train him into 
familiarity with the dark ways of sin and shame, but 
seems as helpless as this vine to stop the process. Only 
God can help him. May he yield to this gravitation 
toward the light, and ever refuse to be trained toward 
the dark, where there is only withering and death. 

III. Motives in Business. Some men make money 
just for the sake of making money. Business is what 
Ruskin calls it, u a great game." They make a dollar 
that they may make another dollar. It is like gaining 
runs in baseball. A run is good for nothing but to 
count, and the game is to make more runs. 

Others make money just to gratify the flesh. They 
want what money can buy : a luxurious home, sumptu- 
ous fare, fine clothes, carriages and automobiles. Trips 
to Europe are to them the summum bonum of life. Still 
others make money that those they love may have the 
necessities and luxuries of life. And others desire to do 
good. They would like to leave the world better than 
they found it. 

But the highest of all motives is that we may serve 
God in serving our fellow-man. "To do good and 
communicate forget not, for with such sacrifices God 
is well pleased." This Scripture unites philanthropy 
with spirituality. It urges us to please God by helping 



-=^= 



Ethics of Business 

man. Such a motive uplifts and inspires. It keeps us 
on the earth while we look up to heaven, and this looking 
up lifts up. The sense of partnership with God enno- 
the highest bles 5 the honor of it cannot be surpassed. 
motive 'pke thought of stewardship which recog- 

nizes God as proprietor, while we do business on His 
capital, carries with it a sense of dependence upon Him 
as well as responsibility in using His gifts that cannot 
fail to make noble character. Business men assure us 
that it is difficult for them to foster their religious expe- 
riences and to keep up their religious duties while 
absorbed in the secular. Observatories built in great 
cities are almost useless, for the jar of the rumbling 
wheels of commerce shakes the telescope so that the 
astronomer cannot make delicate observation of the 
heavens ; and the christian business man, in the rush and 
turmoil of business life, finds that his religious duties are 
interfered with. It is hard to pray in the midst of so 
much confusion. 

The difficulty arises from a too clear-cut distinction 
between business and religion. Let him wipe out the 
word " secular " from his vocabulary. He is God's 
business and steward, and now his office becomes sacred 
religion as a church ; his ledger is as holy as his 

Bible, for both are God's books. He can now pray 
without ceasing, for he realizes the need of God as much 
in his counting-room as in his prayer meeting. The 
whole world has become a temple, God's house, where 
God is worshipped in consecrated service through the 
week, as in public song and prayer on the Sabbath. 
Every spot is holy ground, and every day a holy day, 
every garment a vestment, and every meal a sacrament. 
The Sabbath he hallows by closing his store for the 
worship of God in the sanctuary ; Monday he hallows by 



Ethics of Business 

opening his store for God's presence and help, so that 
it, too, becomes a sanctuary of service. He goes to the 
Lord's supper, to memorialize his death, and when he 
goes to breakfast, dinner or supper he recognizes the 
living Lord as his guest and thanks him for His presence. 
The middle wall of partition between the secular and 
the religious has been broken down. The veil of the 
temple is rent in twain, and all God's house in which we 
live is turned into a Holy of Holies. He still delights to 
hear the music of organ and choir in the church, while 
the melody in his heart is a choir singing unto the Lord 
all through the week. 

Queen Elizabeth asked a rich English merchant to go 
on a mission for the crown. The merchant remon- 
strated, saying that such long absence would be fatal 
the *° ^ s business. "You take care of my busi- 

supreme ness," replied the queen, u and I will take 
care of yours." When he returned he found 
that his business, through the patronage and care of the 
queen, had increased in volume, and he was richer than 
when he left. So every business man can afford to place 
the interests of Christ's kingdom first, for the promise is 
clear and unmistakable, " Seek ye first the kingdom of 
God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be 
added unto you." Make money for Christ, and He will 
make money for you. Supply His needs, and He will 
supply yours. Keep His laws, and He will keep you. 
Do His will, and He will look after your welfare. If 
losses come, He will see that they are ultimate gains. 
Link your destiny in time and eternity with Jesus Christ, 
and bankruptcy will be impossible. Prize the spiritual 
above the material. Transmute the seen and temporal 
into the unseen and eternal. Lay up treasures in heaven, 
so that death, which impoverishes the rich worldling, 
will be your enrichment. Ever seek Christ's u Well 
done " here and you will receive it hereafter. 



Ethics of Marriage and 
Home Life 

"Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord. 
Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter against them. Children, obey your 
parents in all things, for this is well pleasing unto the Lord. Fathers, provoke not 
your children, lest they be discouraged. Servants, obey in all things your masters 
according to the flesh ; not with eye-service as men-pleasers, but in singleness of 
heart, fearing God." — Col. hi : 18-22. 

r\N THE COAST of England there is a gushing 
^^^ fresh-water fountain which twice every twenty- 
four hours is covered by the incoming tide, but no salt 
water ever enters it. It purifies the surrounding ele- 
ments without receiving any contamination. This foun- 
tain is a good symbol of the ideal christian home, which 
sends out into society its purifying influences, while it 
receives into itself nothing of evil. 

Marriage is, of course, the basis of the home. Un- 
married people may establish a house, and it is home by 
sacred association, for they carry with them into it the 
the basis memories of their childhood ; but without 
of the home marr i a g e the ideal home cannot be realized. 
Paul refused to marry because of the " present distress, " 
but he claimed that he had the right to do so and lead 
about a wife as the Apostle Peter did. And there are 
those to-day who deny themselves the pleasure of home 
life because they are married to duty. I knew a chris- 
tian man who for twenty years was married to his mother. 
He lived for her happiness, he ministered to all her needs ; 
but when she died he chose a wife and now lives in a 
happy home. I knew another man who in early life was 
married to nine sisters. He shared with them his in- 



Ethics of Marriage and Home Life 

come until they were educated and became self-sustain- 
ing, then he married a christian woman and is now happy 
in the midst of his family. There are men and women 
who are married to Christ and the church, and yet, if 
they so desire, they have the right of marriage and the 
happiness of home life. There is no biblical authority 
for forbidding to marry. It is a matter of choice. 
There is no ecclesiastical position in which marriage 
may not be helpful. Motherhood is as holy as maiden- 
hood, and fatherhood as bachelorhood. Nothing on 
earth exceeds in sacredness the sanctity of the home life 
and the relation between the members of the family. 
Of course there are some who, on account of physical 
infirmity or hereditary disease, should not marry, "but 
marriage is honorable in all." 

As to when one should marry, each case must be 
decided on its own merits. The Pagan custom of child 
marriages, however, should not be tolerated in christian 
countries. There should be maturity of body and mind. 

As to how one should marry, that is also an open 
question. It may be in the home or the church or the 
grove, as taste may dictate ; it may be private or pub- 
lic, but ought never to be secret. The fashionable fad 
of marrying in secret, and after months have intervened 
informing friends of the marriage, has in it the seeds of 
future sorrow. 

The reasons for marrying are various. It is some- 
times a purely commercial transaction. People marry 
for what they can get, and such a marriage is almost 
certain to result in unhappiness. And if we marry with 
the selfish hope of securing a husband or a wife who 
will make us happier in life, we are apt to be disap- 
pointed. But if it is our purpose in marriage to make 
another happy, we cannot fail to be happy ourselves. 



Ethics of Marriage and Home Life 

Selfishness always carries with it the conditions of 
misery. 

Let it be understood that marriage is for life and 
fewer mistakes will be made. Easy divorce leads people 
to enter into marriage without due consideration, and 
A life this prepares the way for the wreck of happi- 
contract ness# u The wife is bound by the law so 
long as her husband liveth," not so long as he keeps 
sober or remains congenial. " What God hath joined 
together let not man put asunder." There is only one 
sin that is equal to death, and even when the awful 
crime of adultery has broken the marriage tie there may 
be no obligation to remarry, and in most cases it is best 
to remain unmarried. Certainly there is no other con- 
dition in which remarriage has biblical sanction. 

This does not mean that there may not be separation 
for other reasons. The wife is not called upon to live 
with a drunken husband and endure brutal treatment. 
Even incompatibility of temperament may make it 
desirable to live apart, though if there be children it is 
better for their sakes to suffer than to separate. But 
separation for other reasons than adultery does not give 
even the innocent party liberty to marry again while 
both are living. To do so, according to the teaching of 
Jesus, is to commit adultery. It has been asserted that 
there are more polygamists in New England than in 
Utah, and I fear that there is truth in the assertion, for I 
have been requested to marry more divorced people 
during my two years' residence in Boston than during 
any twenty years of my previous ministry. And a pastor 
of a large and influential Boston church informs me 
that he is called upon to marry divorced people, on an 
average, about once a week. One man, who looked 
like a well-to-do man of business, confessed to me that 



Ethics of Marriage and Home Life 

he already had two living wives. My surprise prompted 

me to say that the third woman was taking great risks 

and he ought to be more considerate. But he could see 

no harm in marrying three living women, sim- 
mormons J fe to ' 

compel ply because the law of the State permitted it. 
The proper place for him is Salt Lake City, for 
the Mormons compel such a fellow to support his concu- 
bines, and New England, by its loose divorce laws, re- 
lieves him of that burden. On another occasion a large 
envelope was handed me while I was standing in front of 
a couple ready to begin the ceremony. Opening it, that 
I might see the license and learn their names, I was rather 
startled to find divorce papers with the license, and the 
only cause was drunkenness. Confessing my embarrass- 
ment, I informed them that I could not marry them. 
64 It is legal and all right, " answered the man. "Yes," 
I replied, "but my lawgiver is Jesus Christ and He 
plainly teaches that only one cause of divorce makes 
remarriage permissible. " So as cheerfully as I could I 
shook hands all round and bade them good-bye. All of 
which goes to prove that pastors should instruct their 
people in the teaching of the New Testament concern- 
ing marriage, that the young may grow up with biblical 
views on this vital subject. 

There are six codes of ethics which have to do with 
marriage and the home. The first is the wife's code, 
and we have it in the text, " Wives, submit yourselves 
unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord." This 
is an echo of the words in Ephesians v : 22, "Wives, 
submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the 
Lord ; for the husband is the head of the wife, even as 
Christ is the head of the church." Every home must 
have a head, and a two-headed creature is a monster. 
The Bible plainly teaches that the husband is the normal 



Ethics of Marriage and Home Life 

head of the household. Of course, if the head is dis- 
eased, the other members of the body must get along 
the best they can ; and there is as much fact as wit in 
the saying that, while the husband is the head, the wife 
is the neck that turns the head in any direction she 
may choose. Certainly, there is no conflict between 
head and neck and hand when the body is in a 
thoroughly healthy condition. But the head is the seat 
of authority when authority is needed. u Likewise, 
wives, be in subjection to your own husbands. " (I Peter 
iii : i .) The woman who is unwilling that a man should 
be at the head of her household should not get married, 
and every woman ought to be careful to select such a 
man as she will be proud to have at the head of the 
family. It also behooves the husband to be such a man 
that a self-respecting woman may feel honored in giving 
to him the leadership of the household. 

Next in order, if not in importance, is the husband's 
code, which we have in the words: "Husbands, love 
your wives and be not bitter against them." And this, 
also, is an echo of the words in Ephesians v : 25, " Hus- 
bands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the 
church and gave himself for it." As we compare this 
with the injunctions to the wife we see that mutuality is 
the law of the family. It is the nature of love to serve 
and obey. If the husband loves the wife as he should 
and the wife loves the husband as she should there can 
be no clash of authority. Each will delight to serve the 
other, and there will be mutual obedience in the minis- 
try of love. u As the church is subject unto Christ, so 
let the wives be to their own husbands in everything." 
That is a high standard for the wife, but the standard 
for the husband is even higher when he is told to " love 
his wife even as Christ also loved the church and gave 



Ethics of Marriage and Home Life 

himself for it." His is the mission of love, which gives 
itself and does not demand servile subjection. With 
such love in his heart it is easy for the husband to obey 
the second command : u Dwell with your wives accord- 
ing to knowledge, giving honor unto the wife as unto 
the weaker vessel." Remember that weakness does not 
imply inferiority. The weaker may be the finer in 
texture. The vessel of porcelain or gold may not be so 
strong as the vessel of iron or brass, but its quality is 
superior. So the husband in his strength is to give 
honor to the wife in the weakness which may carry with 
it superiority. In this age of club life it may be well to 
emphasize the word " dwell." The husband is admon- 
ished to "dwell" with his wife. His business may 
carry him away from home, and sometimes the mis- 
sionary is prompted by conscientious reasons to separate 
himself from his wife, with an ocean between them. 
The evangelist may be compelled to leave the wife at 
home as he goes out into the destitute sections to preach 
the gospel. But the heart of the true husband dwells 
with the wife at home, and when duty does not other- 
wise demand he will be there in body also. Certain it 
is that the attractions of the club and the secret society 
should not take the husband away from the company of 
his wife and children in the home. 

It may be well to remember that marriage does not at 
once produce perfection in character. If you thought 
that you were marrying a prince, you found afterwards 
demanding tna t he was a man. If the man thought that 
too much ke was marrying an angel, he also discovered 
that she was a woman. But, after all, it is more to be a 
man than a prince , or a woman than an angel . There will 
be room for patience and sympathy in the adjustments of 
life. A good wife said that she and her husband were 



Ethics of Marriage and Home Life 

always happy because they kept in their home two 
animals which she named "Bear" and "Forbear." 
Now and then a man is found who is charitable toward 
the faults of friends and very critical of his wife. He 
demands of her more than imperfect human nature can 
give, and she may make the same demands of him* 
The ancient legend declares that Pygmalion conceived 
an ideal of a perfect woman, and the gods created 
Galatea, who was the realization of his ideal, and gave 
her to him. But the legend of Pygmalion is not often 
realized in actual life. A book which I read years ago, 
" How to be Happy though Married," had some useful 
suggestions. The mutuality of grace will supply every 
defect and make the home what it ought to be. The 
apostle says that husband and wife are "heirs together 
of the grace of life." If this grace of life dwell richly 
in the heart of each, harmony and happiness cannot fail 
to result, and the home will be like the rose of Jericho, 
of which I recently read. It flourishes in the desert 
and can grow even upon the rock, and it comes nearer 
being independent of environment than any other plant 
with which I am acquainted. Let love rule in the 
home, and it will be a rose of Jericho even in a desert 
of destitution. 

Charles Wesley beautifully expresses the ideal rela- 
tion of husband and wife : 

" Not from his head was woman took, 
As made her husband to overlook ; 
Not from his feet, as one designed 
The footstool of the stronger kind ; 
But fashioned for himself a bride, 
An equal, taken from his side : 
Her place intended to maintain 
The mate and glory of the man, 
To rest as still beneath his arm, 
Protected by her lord from harm, 
And never from his heart removed 
As only less than God beloved." 



Ethics of Marriage and Home Life 

The next code of ethics which makes the home what it 

ought to be has to do with the parents, and in this code 

there are two clauses, one negative, the other positive. 

We are commanded not to provoke our children.- 

THB 

parents' The phrase " to anger" is not in the original. 

CODE 

The word "provoke" has in it the idea of over 
stimulation. We are not to press our children to the point 
of breaking:. The strenuous life is not the best for child- 
hood. The public school teacher who crams the child's 
mind and would crush every personality into the same 
mould may learn a useful lesson from this principle. 
Let individualism have fair play, while the rights of 
others are respected. An unwise attempt to hasten the 
growth of the child may result in injury. A naturalist^ 
very fond of the " Emperor Moth," which is beautiful 
of wing and form, gathered a number of cocoons and 
watched their development. A very large one attracted 
his attention, and when the moth began to appear he 
was anxious to liberate it from its prison. Taking his 
sharp knife he cut the cocoon, thinking that he would 
help the insect into liberty. But his unwise haste was 
its death ; it fell to the ground unable to fly. Its body 
needed the slow process of extrication. And so, in 
seeking to develop our children too rapidly in mind or 
body we may inflict permanent injury. 

The positive clause of the parents' code is in Ephe- 
sians vi : 4, " Bring them up in the nurture and admoni- 
tion of the Lord." This implies the new birth and is 
an echo of the words of Solomon in Proverbs xxii : 6, 
u Train up a child in the way he should go and when 
he is old he will not depart from it." These words 
might be translated "train up a child according to his 
bent." If you cultivate him along the line of the trend 
of his nature, he will become fixed in that trend when he 



on 



Ethics of Marriage and Home Life 

Teaches mature life and will not depart from it. The 
mew birth gives the spiritual trend, and if we train up 
our children according to this new nature they will 
never depart from it. Even some professing christians 
are willing that their children should grow up as world- 
lings and enjoy for a while what they call the pleasures 
of life before they become earnest christians. Such 
parents have not tasted the joy of real spiritual service 
or they would wish their children to share such joy with 
them. It is a Mohammedan custom to speak into the 
ear of the new-born child some words from the Koran, 
and in this expression u train up" there is the thought 
of infancy. The original means " rub the gullet," refer- 
ring to an ancient custom of rubbing the throat of 
infancy with oil and blood. Whatever else it may 
mean, it certainly enforces the obligation to begin the 
christian training of our children in their earliest years. 
Jesus said, u Suffer little children to come unto me, and 
forbid them not." The child that is old enough to love 
and obey the parent is old enough to love and obey God. 
Christ is worthy not only that the soul of the child 
should be given him, but the life as well, and the con- 
version of a child means the soul and life for time and 
eternity. 

A man in Connecticut who had been saved at sixty years 
of age, while he was dying exclaimed, "Lost, lost, for- 
ever lost ! " and when the pastor, rushing to his bedside, 
expressed his surprise at such an exclamation, 
for he had just given assurance that he was 
trusting in Christ for salvation, the man replied, " Oh, 
yes, my soul is saved, but fifty years of life are lost for- 
ever." Every parent should strive to give to his child a 
better experience than that. If he is won to the Saviour 
in childhood, when he comes to die he can look back 



Ethics of Marriage and Home Life 

upon a life worthily spent while he looks forward to a 
blissful eternity. 

Now comes the child's code, which has in it the two 
great words "obey" and " honor." The text says, 
" Children, obey your parents in all things, for this is 
the CHILD'S we ^ pleasing unto the Lord." And this 
code word "obey" is the same that is used in 

Acts when Rhoda went to the door and listened for the 
voice of Peter on the outside. It means that you are 
not only to submit to the authority of parents, but look 
and listen for their slightest wish. Strive to please them. 
Do their will so far as you know it unless it contradicts 
the will of God, whose authority alone is superior to 
that of the parent. And the word "honor" carries with 
it even more than this word "obey." " Honor thy father 
and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon the 
earth." The first command with a promise. Your 
parents may not be in their tastes and grammar just 
what you are. They gave you a better education than 
they received, but you need not be ashamed of their 
quaint ways and ungrammatical expressions. Give 
them the place of honor in your heart and home. And 
this does not refer to the period of childhood only, 
but in relation to our parents we are to be children all 
our lives. 

In many homes there is need of the servant's code, 
and in this, as revealed in the New Testament, two 
words express its meaning — "obey" and "please." 
servant's u Servants, obey in all things your masters 
C0DE according to the flesh, and whatsoever ye do, 

do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men; know- 
ing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the 
inheritance, for ye serve the Lord Christ." This obedi- 
ence is not to be with eye-service, striving only to please 



^^^■^■^■■■^■■^^^HBi^unrcnj 



Ethics of Marriage and Home Life 

men, but u in singleness of heart, fearing God." j.^ 
slave without liberty of body may have great liberty 
of soul. He is a free man in Christ Jesus. His daily 
service is ennobled by the thought that in faithfully 
performing it he is pleasing Christ and receiving His 
"Well done !" And the servant who faithfully ministers 
in the home, doing heartily and cheerfully the duties of 
the day, will receive a greater reward than the million- 
aire who seeks the promotion of some great enterprise, 
prompted by selfish motives. The reward will come 
from the Lord. Indeed, God does not count the bigness 
of the sphere, but the faithfulness with which we fill it. 

Linked with this is the master's code, which has in 
it three emphatic words — " do," "forbear" "give." 
" And ye, masters, do the same things unto them." 
Which means that as servants are to obey their masters, 
performing their duties in singleness of heart, as unto 
Christ, serving the Lord in serving men, so masters are 
to obey the higher law of humanity in serving their 
servants, doing good unto them, and thus pleasing God 
while they uplift humanity. Masters are to u forbear 
threatening, knowing that your Master also is in heaven ; 
neither is there respect of persons with Him." Self- 
restraint and patience are needed by the master as much 
as by the servant. And the final injunction is, "Masters, 
give unto your servants that which is just and equal, 
knowing that ye also have a Master in heaven." Deal 
justly and fairly with all ; remember that they are 
human beings with sensitive spirits and immortal souls. 
Be unto them just what you think the Lord Jesus would 
be, if he were in your place, and in serving your ser- 
vants in the higher sense you are faithfully serving the 
Master in heaven. 

We cannot receive from this subject the best that is 



Ethics of Marriage and Home Life 

in it unless we apply its principles to God and ourselves. 
God is our husband. We who trust in Christ are His 
bride. He gives us His name. He supplies our needs. 
the higher We share with him His dignity and glory, 
realm an j we are to kg car eful that we bring not 

reproach upon His name. God is our father, and we 
may depend upon His wisdom for guidance and helpful- 
ness. During the battle of Crecy the u Black Prince" 
led the charge, while his father stood on an adjacent 
hilltop and w T atched the conflict. The father had told 
the prince that he would send to him reinforcements 
whenever he saw that they were needed. And in the 
thick of the fight the prince felt more than once that 
the time for reinforcements had arrived, but they never 
came. The father general, in his superior wisdom, 
knew that they were not needed, and left his son to 
fight the battle that he might have the honor of the more 
glorious victory. Many times in life's conflict we feel 
our limitations, and we wonder that our Father does 
not give us immediate relief ; but He knows what is 
best. He gives us just what is needed for our full 
development and complete victory. 

The Lord is our Master, and His approval is our joy. 
When Rudolph of Vienna gave his great Symphony we 
are told that the people pressed around him at the close, 
offering their congratulations, but he received them 
coldly. There seemed to be something weighing upon 
his mind. When, however, the master musician who 
had trained him approached and said that the symphony 
was a great success, the face of Rudolph lighted up and 
the smile indicated that he was pleased. The approval 
of the master was more to him than the applause of the 
multitude. And so when w r e hear in our inner con- 
sciousness the voice of God — ;4 Well done ! M — we have 
a foretaste of heaven. 



K?fJifl 



Ethics of Marriage a?zd Home Life 

The blessings of the home life, however, are not without 
their dangers. One may become satisfied with the love 
of wife and child without the love of God. It is some- 
times said of a prosperous business man that he 

DANGERS 

loves his home, but he never goes to church. He 
is enjoying the gift of God without thanking the giver. 
All that home, with wife and mother and child, means 
to-day we owe to Christ, and the man who enjoys the 
home life without the recognition of Jesus is, to say the 
least, ungrateful. It is just possible for us, like Adam, 
to hide ourselves from the Lord of the garden in the 
luxuriance of the garden of the Lord. We allow the 
very blessings He gives us to separate us from himself. 
A wealthy man built a beautiful home on the side of a 
mountain in Colorado. He selected the spot because of 
the magnificent landscape which spread out before him. 
The golden sunsets were glorious. But he planted 
around his house many trees, with vines, and after a few 
years the trees and vines had shut out the landscape and 
the golden sunsets. His improvement of the home took 
away from him the larger view. And thus it is possible 
for us to shut ourselves within the shady nook of home 
life and allow it to cut off the view of our eternal home. 
That which gives us great pleasure may also bring 
unutterable pain. The joys of home make possible its 
deepest sorrows. The happy home is many a time 
broken up by death or calamity. And yet the home is 
never destroyed ; it goes with us in our hearts wherever 
we may wander. He may allow the earthly home to be 
darkened or broken up that He may bring in view the 
home on which shadows never fall. A farmer noticed 
that two robins were building their nests in a pile of 
brush which he knew was to be burned in a few days. 
The robins seemed to think that it was very cruel in 



Ethics of Marriage and Home Life 

him to tear away the nest they had built, but it was real 
kindness on his part. 

And yet, whatever calamity may come, the christian 
home is really immortal. The Indians of a certain tribe 
had a beautiful legend which declared that when the 
Indian flowers of the field began to fade their colors 
legend were caught up into the rainbow on the cloud, 
so that when they gazed at the rainbow they saw the 
flowers that had disappeared. So in the Father's house, 
which Christ has gone to prepare, we can see by faith 
all the beauties of the earthly home, and when death 
comes it will be simply a home-going. No wonder the 
christian now and then becomes home-sick for heaven. 
The loved ones who made the home happy here are now 
over there, and I would appeal to everyone who has not 
this home feeling toward heaven that they seek it through. 
Jesus Christ. 

It is said that John Howard Payne, who wrote 

"Home, Sweet Home," never knew what it was to have 

a home — he was a homeless wanderer over the earth. 

"home, O ne n ig nt ? sitting on the steps of a home 

sweet home" j n a great ^^ he gaw a jj ght trough a 

window and heard merry laughter and sweet music. A& 
he sat there the words of " Home, Sweet Home" came 
to his mind, and he penned them that very night. Years 
afterward Mr. Payne visited the same city, and as he 
walked down the street after dark, remembering the. 
writing of his hymn, he went over and sat upon fche* 
same steps, meditating upon the past. While he sat; 
there the same window was lighted. He heard the- 
notes of the piano, and out into the night came floating- 
his own words with the familiar melody, " Home, 
Sweet Home." He put his face in his hands and 
wept as he thought how he had made other homes 



Ethics of Marriage and Home Life 

happy while not permitted to enjoy the happiness of a 
home himself. 

Now suppose the owner of that beautiful home had 
come to the door and said, " Mr. Payne, come in and 
enjoy with us this home, with all its beauty and music. 
You may have it if you will." Would he refuse the 
offer and go out again to wander through the earth? 
Certainly he would express his appreciation and gratitude . 

Something like this God does through Jesus Christ. 
He stands in the door of heaven and invites us to come 
in and enjoy its purity, its service, its music, its love. 
You will not refuse to accept ! I plead with you in the 
name of Jesus, whose death on the cross purchased this 
home and whose righteousness makes it glorious, that 
you will accept the invitation, and make the preparation 
that will fit you for its enjoyment. 



The Ethics of Amusements 

" I said in mine heart, Go to now, I will prove thee with 

mirth ; therefore enjoy pleasure ; and, behold, 

this also is vanity." Eccl. ii: i. 

CEEKING PLEASURE does not bring pleasure. 
^ Solomon tried this, and gives us the results in the 
book of Ecclesiastes. He had power, wealth and leisure, 
and could therefore make a fair test of the pleasure- 
seeking life. He drank moderately, he gratified his 
pleasure aesthetic tastes in building great public works, 
seeking g ne nouseS9 an( j { n planting vineyards, gardens 
pleasure and orchards, adorned with pools of water and 
flowing fountains. To them he added music, vocal and 
instrumental, the best that wealth and kingly patronage 
could secure. He says : u I withheld not my heart from 
any joy. Whatever mine eyes desired, I kept not from 
them." And after such an experience of pleasure- 
seeking, he exclaimed in disgust, " All is vanity and 
vexation of Spirit, and there is no profit under the sun.' 3 
Then he turned himself to madness and folly. He 
plunged into excesses of drink and lust, which soon 
turned him into a misanthrope, so that he says: U I 
hated life, yea, I hated all my labor because I should 
leave it unto the man that shall be after me." His ver- 
dict upon life's pleasure and labor is that it is all vanity 
and striving after wind. These experiences of Solomon 
prove five things : 

First. That the pleasure-seeking spirit does not, in 
the long run, bring pleasure. 



Ethics of Amusements 

Second. That the pleasure-seeking spirit fosters sel- 
fishness, and thus makes ugly character. 

Third. That a pleasure-seeking spirit degenerates into 
a life of debauchery. 

Fourth. That a pleasure-seeking spirit ends in hatred 
of all life, and in a sense of failure, which is positive 
pain. 

Fifth. That a pleasure-seeking spirit, therefore, is 
certain, sooner or later, to banish all pleasure and fill life 
with disappointment and sorrow. 

In a word, Solomon's verdict is that the pleasure- 
seeking spirit is immoral. 

Beau Brummel, after he had spent his life in rounds 
of pleasure, dancing with the princesses of the land, 
pointed to a dog as he lay asleep in the sun and said : 
u I wish I were that dog." 

This experience of Solomon is confirmed by the testi- 
mony of Christ and the Apostles. " Ye have lived in 
pleasure on the earth," says James, u and been wanton. 
testimony op Ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day 
new testament of s i augn ter." That is, those who live 
in pleasure will soon become wanton. They will have 
pleasure at the expense of virtue, and revel in their aban- 
donment to vice. Such persons are treating themselves as 
the butcher treats the calves of the stall. They are simply 
fattening their hearts for a day of slaughter. They are 
heart-murderers. The finer feelings of the soul are slaugh- 
tered by the pleasure-seeking spirit. The apostle there- 
fore declares, u She that liveth in pleasure is dead while 
she liveth." The pleasure-seeking spirit really kills the 
soul to all that is noble. The body of the pleasure-seeker 
is a walking sepulchre. The soul within has become dead 
to high aspirations and holy motives. Like Bunyan's man 
with the muckrake, he keeps his eyes on the trash and dirt 



Ethics of Amusements 

of earth, with no regard for the crown above his head. 
The royalty of true manhood is sacrificed for the muck 
of passing sensation. The smoking pottage of present 
indulgence causes the pleasure-seeker to despise the 
birthright of his soul. 

A mother and father in Boston are to-day mourning for 
a daughter whose condition is worse than physical death. 
She walks the streets and plies her trade of evil. A friend 
the great met ner the other day and asked why she did not 
robber g Q i lome> jj er reply was : "It is too dull ; 

I cannot have enough fun there." The pleasure -seeking 
spirit has murdered in that young woman all love of 
mother and virtue. She is dead while she liveth. But 
the results with her have been just as Jesus said, u The 
pleasures of life choke the word and make it unfruitful." 
That word u choke " is very suggestive. As the robber 
chokes his victim into insensibility that he may rob him 
with ease, so the pleasure-seeking spirit chokes truth 
and robs it of its power to save and help. This pleasure- 
seeking spirit is the bandit on the earth's highway, 
awaiting its opportunity to choke every influence that 
would make us better men and women. This bandit 
entered the dwelling of the rich man of the parable, and, 
muffling his hand in the sumptuous daily fare, choked 
conscience and all holy aspirations, so that the beggar at 
the gate w r ith his dog companions, alive to the voice of 
God and duty, was the happier of the two in this world 
and the next. 

It is the pleasure-seeking spirit that produces the kind 
of people described in Phil, iii : 18, "Whose god is 
their belly ; whose glory is in their shame, who mind 
earthly things." 

"Lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God" are 
classed among the u covetous, blasphemers, unfaithful, 



Ethics of Amusements 

unholy, without natural affection, truce-breakers, false 
accusers, incontinent, and despisers of those that are 
good, having a form of godliness, but denying the power 
m bad thereof." Every pastor knows that those who 
company are dominated by the pleasure -seeking spirit, 
though they may be punctilious about the form of god- 
liness on the Sabbath, are void of the power of godliness 
during the week. They may be moral in their outward 
lives, and religious in external observances, but they lack 
power to make others either moral or religious. The 
best that can be said of them is that they are negatively 
good, in that they do not break the ten commandments, 
but they lack positive power for holiness. Theirs is a 
religion of form without force. In Titus iii : 3 we have 
a picture of those who served divers lusts and pleasures, 
while they live in malice and envy, hateful and hating 
one another. In this picture the pleasure-seeking spirit 
is the master, and the pleasure-seeker is the slave. 

Moses was a wise man in choosing u even to suffer 
affliction with the people of God," rather than to be 
the slave of this pleasure-seeking spirit for a season. 
(Hebrews xi : 25.) Pleasure-seekers are deceived into 
the illusion that they are free to do as they please, but 
really they are slaves. " Spots they are and blemishes, 
sporting themselves with their own deceivings . . . 
while they promise them liberty, they themselves are the 
servants of corruption." (II Peter ii : 13.) 

In the light of these principles let us take a bird's-eye 
view of the dance, the theatre, and the card table, the 
three popular amusements born of the pleasure-seeking 
spirit, while we reserve for future sermons a fuller treat- 
ment of each. 

Dancing is not now an expression of joy, as it was in 
primitive times. Its purpose is to give pleasure, rather 



Ethics of Amusements 

than express pleasure ; and the pleasure it gives is, 

according to the most competent witnesses, the silent 

enjoyment of sex. The modern dance is a contrivance 

for the mingling of sensuous music and sexual 

THE DANCE to ° . 

excitement. I he physical response to music 
has little to do with it. If it did, the square dance, without 
the embrace, would be popular, but we know that it has 
become so obsolete that some young people have never 
heard of it. The pleasure -seeking spirit, based upon sex, 
is the swirling current that runs w^ith incredible swift- 
ness towards the maelstrom of ruin. 

The theatre, through the eye and ear, does for the 
audience what the dance does through the sense of touch. 
The average modern play is full of suggestion and innu- 
the endo for both eye and ear. Undress that would 

theatre no ^ ^ tolerated in any respectable home, even 
among brothers and sisters , is common on the stage . Con- 
versation, which off the stage would mark a woman as 
unfit for decent company, and postures from which the 
face of modest virtue would turn in disgust in any other 
place, are not only tolerated, but are known by theatre 
managers to be the popular features of a play. 

I received last week from a gentleman in Washington, 
D. C, the following letter : 

My dear Sir : I was interested in your sermon on theatres, 
as reported in the Boston Globe last Monday. I believe it to be 
the imperative duty of the pulpit to speak out clearly on this 
money-eating, soul-destroying evil. Last New Year's night I 
was asked to go to the theatre by a person who makes a practice 
of going at least twice a week. We went to the Lafayette 
Theatre, which stands directly opposite the White House. I 
thought, truly we shall see nothing questionable there. But, 
sir, from beginning to end the play was suggestive of evil. Lies 
were told from beginning to end. In one part there was a 
young woman alone on the stage with a young man. After a 



Ethics of Amusements 

while they occupied one chair ; then, to be more comfortable, 
she must needs sit on his knee. After a time the suggestion 
was made that her papa would object to them burning so much 
gas. Out went the lights. The theatre was dark as could be 
for at least five minutes. Another of the women sang the most 
suggestive song that I ever listened to, entitled "Just One 
Touch," and to wind up the song she jumped into the man's 
arms and was carried off the stage drawling out "Just One 
Touch." Lights out again. There were many other things 
which I could describe, but I suppose you know them ; but the 
surprising thing to me was the fact that the woman I was with 
saw nothing wrong in the play. She thought it was really pretty. 
She is a church member, and I believe pure, but how a person 
can be so blinded to the evil passes my comprehension. I 
believe truly, as you say, of all the institutions in the world 
which receive public recognition, the theatre is the most 
immoral and corrupting. 

I have recently been informed that most of the great 
theatres in the large cities of America are owned by two 
Jewish men of wealth, and their policy is simply to 
make money. Actresses, who at first desire to be 
respectable, have been compelled against their protest 
to take parts repulsive to every instinct of a virtuous 
woman, and this will account for the horrible degrada- 
tion of the American stage, as acknowledged even by its 
friends, during the past few years. Shylocks who care 
more for ducats than for personal virtue or public morals 
have control of an institution which, under the best of 
management, is bad in its influence upon all who act a 
part, but which, under the control of insatiable money- 
sharks, may become simply insufferable in its diabolical 
work of debasing character on both sides of the foot- 
lights. 

The card table does not, like the dance and the theatre, 
strike at the chastity of men and women. It is with 
the dance in that it is a waste of time, and adds nothing 



Ethics of Amusements 

to the intellectual store. The few phases of cards and the 
technique of the ballroom may be properly defined as 
mental vacuity. The card table strikes directly at the ten 
the CARD commandments, and its tendency is to make 
table men an( j W omen dishonest. Doctor Savage, of 
New York, who does not stand for a very high type of 
spirituality, said some time ago that a friend of his had 
decided to quit playing cards because he had noticed 
that card players did not hesitate to cheat. Now, in 
games of pure chance, the only way to excel as a player 
is to cheat. It fosters a spirit of dishonesty. The mania 
for winning stakes, which means getting something for 
nothing, becomes a consuming passion which soon burns 
up in its flame all integrity and honesty. 

From all this it is fair to infer that no conscientious 
person can have a good time indulging in amusements 
which destroy the virtue and integrity of men and 
conscientiousness women. He may have stamina of 
necessary character to resist this evil influence, 

but a conscientious man cannot be happy with the 
consciousness that by his presence and patronage he is 
assisting institutions which degrade more than they up- 
lift. And it is only with the conscientious men and 
women that I deal in these sermons. If one confesses 
that he has no conscience, that he is as willing to do 
wrong as to do right, that he is as happy doing harm 
as doing good, there is no need of arguing with him. 
He belongs to the immoral brute beasts, of whom Peter 
in his epistle speaks ; indeed, he is not far removed from 
the dog, the goat and the pig, which satisfy their present 
appetites, unrestrained by moral considerations. He 
certainly is not a christian, and we will have to leave 
him to wallow in the mire until a merciful God shall 
reach him with a power from above and give him the 
new birth of a higher character. 



nHMHHBaiaBi 



• V 



Ethics of Amusements 

Conscientiousness, made by the best public sentiment 
in favor of chaste, clean minds and lives, cannot have a 
good time patronizing the dance and the theatre, which 
are known as institutions that work against chastity and 
purity of mind and life. And conscientiousness, made 
by the standard of common honesty, cannot have a good 
time playing cards, when it knows that as an institution 
the card table is the implement of the gambler the world 
over and the foster mother of dishonesty. 

One can be happy without dancing, card-playing or 
theatre-going by adopting the following principles and 
rules : 

First, Cultivate a noble motive. If your motive has 
been simply to seek pleasure, discard that as unworthy 
of an intelligent moral being. Aspire first to do right, 
and then to do good. Cultivate conscientiousness with 
a standard as high as the law of God. Seek to do good 
unto all men. Make others happy by making them better. 
Build character in yourself and others. Remember you 
are living for eternity. Take not for a model the butter- 
fly that flits from flower to flower, caring only to sip the 
honey that gratifies the present need. We are not insects 
of the day. We bear the marks of immortality. The 
u this worldliness " of Benjamin Franklin should be 
modified by the " other worldliness " of Jesus and the 
Apostles. 

Second. Indulge only in such amusements as are clean 

and not associated with evil institutions. It is evident 

from the Scriptures that God is not opposed to play. 

Indeed, I think He is pleased to see his children at 

PLAY 

play ; and play, you know, is what one does for 
the pleasure it gives. It has its dangers, for when we 
pursue a thing just for the pleasure it imparts we are 
apt to follow it until it ceases to give pleasure, and, it 



Ethics of Amusemejtts 

may be, turns to nausea. One may love his work until 
it becomes play ; and change of work is for him a change 
of play, just because he works for the pleasure of it. 

There are amusements that are clean and not associ- 
ated with evil institutions. Golf, lawn tennis, croquet, 
bicycle riding, the row on the river, the ramble through 
the woods, coasting and sleighing, and many other out- 
door pastimes furnish amusement which fills the lungs 
with fresh air, and do not smirch the morals by evil 
associations. For indoors, there are chess and checkers, 
which are not games of chance ; ping pong, which 
requires skill and gives good exercise ; cards which 
entertain while they instruct, and games without number 
which furnish rollicking fun and merry laughter. I 
omit billiards because of its evil associations. Discard 
all kissing games on the ground of good taste, as well as 
for sanitary reasons. Books are published, some of them 
under religious auspices, which furnish hundreds of 
merry, innocent games, which, with a little use of the 
brains, will give immensely more enjoyment to an even- 
ing party than dancing, cards, or the theatre. 

And is it not time, in this century of boasted civili- 
zation, that we should cultivate again the art of conver- 
sation, and make an occasional evening happy with the 
flow of thought and the sparkle of wit and humor? 

The Christian homes that allow the world 
to furnish their amusements with the dance 
and the card table do not have so good a time as the 
homes that entertain their guests with pleasant surprises 
that show thought and personality. And there is a 
world of music which may be enjoyed without counte- 
nancing the obscene undress of the opera and the moral 
nastiness of the theatre. A wholesome taste for reading, 
which theatre-going is more apt to vitiate than to culti- 



Ethics oj Amusements 

vate, is an ever-flowing fountain of pleasure. An even- 
ing spent with a masterpiece of literature, while it 
makes character, will give more pleasure to a healthy 
mind than cards, the dance or the theatre, while it leaves 
no sting of evil association in its trail. 

Third. Take Christ into your heart and life. Let 
Him be the umpire of pleasure and duty. Heed the 
words of Mary, when she said to the servants at the feast 
the secret m Canaan: "Whatsoever He says unto 
OF happiness you? do it » Always live to please Him. 

Always ask, what would Jesus do ? And do that thing 
regardless of consequences. If you have become ac- 
quainted with Christ by a living faith, and a careful study 
of His life in the four gospels, you can tell just about 
what He would do if in your place ; and when you have 
received by grace the Spirit, and formed the habit of 
pleasing Him, you will begin to know what it is to have 
a truly good time. You will then learn that even self- 
denial with His approval gives more pleasure than any 
sort of indulgence without His approval. You will then 
have the secret of joy even in sorrow, of peace in the 
midst of confusion, of having a good time in the midst 
of evil times. The Christian who is separated unto 
Christ, and from the indulgence of all that contaminates, 
is the one truly happy person in this world. Others 
have the glitter, he has the gold. His abstinence brings 
more joy than their indulgence ; and his indulgence in 
that which is good multiplies the joy of his self-denial. 



Ethics of the Theatre 

"Abstain from every form of evil." I Thess. v : 22. 

np HERE IS A DISTINCTION between the stage as 
"*■ an institution and an occasional performance. As 
an institution the stage may be vicious, while the occa- 
sional performance may be moral. The question, there- 
fore, for us to answer is not, Shall I read dramatic 
literature ? for all will acknowledge that such literature 
may be wholesome. The question is not, May I go to 
see and hear a certain moral play? but, Shall I patronize 
the institution known as the theatre, of which that moral 
play is only a part ? 

The stage has a history which is not to its credit. 
"Dramatic representation, " says Dr. Herrick Johnson, 
64 had its origin among the Greeks with a troupe of 
history of bacchanalians in rude and boisterous songs, 
the stage interspersed with dances, conducted with a 
high degree of licentiousness both in language and 
action. Then came Thespis, introducing tragedy. The 
stage is said to have been a cart, the chorus a troupe of 
itinerant singers, and the actor a sort of mimic. Subse- 
quently ^Eschylus appeared, who carried the Greek 
drama at once to nearly its highest perfection. He was 
followed by Sophocles, who introduced a third, and 
even a fourth, actor into his plays. Then came decline 
under Euripides, exhibiting degenerate taste and loose 
morality. The transition to comedy was easy, origi- 
nating in the licentious sports of the villages, and popular 
in proportion as it was personal, abusive and low. The 



Ethics of the Theatre 

comedies of Aristophanes are an illustration at once ot 
the depravity of the poet and the libertinism of the 
spectators. His wit was coarse and vile, a mixture of 
buffoonery and positive filth. 

44 Theatrical exhibitions became popular amusements 
among the Romans just as they lost their stern love of 
virtue, yielded to luxury, and grew weak and effeminate. 

" The European stage is no exception. This grew 
out of the 'Mysteries' of the Middle Ages — a sort of 
sacred drama performed by monks, in which the Devil 
also played a conspicuous part. This was the founda- 
tion of the modern British and American stage, which 
has risen only to degenerate, until now many of its 
exhibitions outrival in licentiousness and filth the dark- 
est days of the drama, even on the confession of its 
friends. 

u In China theatrical entertainments are popular, but 
neither there nor in Japan are women allowed to per- 
form. It is a question whether women were ever 
present in the ancient theatre. It is undeniable that the 
actors were invariably men, and few in number; and 
yet these theatrical entertainments contributed to the 
downfall of the Grecian state. They had their origin 
in a corrupt state of morals, and they tended to deterior- 
ation." 

Not long after the Declaration of Independence our 
American Congress passed the following resolution : 

44 Whereas true religion and good morals are the only 
solid foundation of public liberty and happiness ; Re- 
solved, that it be and is hereby earnestly recommended 
action of to the several States to take the most effectual 
congress measures for the discouragement and suppres- 
sion of theatrical entertainments, horse racing, gaming, 
and such other diversions as are productive of idleness, 



Ethics of the Theatre 

dissipation, and a general depravity of principles and 



manners." 



Now, were our forefathers fanatics and fools ? or did 
they have good reasons for passing such resolutions? 
The best Greek and Roman writers, such as Xenophon, 
Plato, Socrates and Tacitus, denounced the theatre of 
their times as antagonistic to good morals, Athens 
suppressed the theatre by law. In Rome " gross exhi- 
bitions and licentious buffoonery became the common 
rule of the play." " The Roman theatre," says Dr. 
Schaff, u became more and more the nursery of vice, 
and deserved to be abhorred by all men of decent feeling 
and refinement." Mr. Lecky declares that the u Moral 
and Mystery plays of the Middle Ages brought about 
the degradation of the church and all religion." Of 
England Macaulay writes: u From the time that the 
theatres were opened they became the seminaries of 
vice." And Sir Walter Scott says of the theatre in his 
day : "It was abandoned to the vicious. The best por- 
tions of the house were set apart for the abandoned 
characters." The playhouses of England were sup- 
pressed by Cromwell. 

It is evident, therefore, that our fathers in Congress 
knew history and acted according to the light they had. 
But has not the theatre improved ? Is not the institu- 
has stage ^ on ver y much better now than it was then? 
improved? Efforts have been made to reform it, Edwin 
Booth declared that he would have a moral theatre in 
New York, but he failed to establish it on a paying 
basis. Henry Irving made the attempt in London, and 
as signally failed. Hannah More wrote moral plays, 
but the theatrical managers did not want them, because 
they would not pay. All who know the facts are com- 
pelled to admit that the theatre is still bad. One need 



Ethics of the Theatre 

not go to it to learn this ; he has only to look at the 

billboards. Its bill of fare is for the most part moral 
filth. To be found standing before the average theat- 
rical poster is a reflection on one's purity of mind. 
Modesty must turn away its face for self -protection. 

Now and then a pure play is placed before the public 
with great parade, and the preachers are invited to come 
and see. Then look out for more filth the following 
week ! The pure play has been used as a sort of opiate 
for the consciences of the guardians of public morals* 
They are not expected to denounce what appears in the 
same building where they sat and enjoyed a moral play. 
The theatrical manager knows how to manage the 
public so as to fill his coffers. 

The fact that the theatre as an institution is still bad 
is proved by the testimony of those w T ho are most fa- 
miliar with its workings. " None of my children," said 
actors as Macready, the actor, u shall ever with my 
witnesses consen t ? on any pretence, enter a theatre or 
have any visiting connection with actors or actresses/' 
Edwin Booth said: U I never permit my wife and 
daughter to witness a play without previously ascertain- 
ing its character." This is an admission that the theatre 
as an institution is bad, though some plays may be good. 
Mr. Dumas, the play- writer, wrote to a friend : u You 
do not take your daughter to see my play. You are 
right. Let me say, once for all, you must not take your 
daughter to the theatre. It is not mainly the work that 
is immoral; it is the place." Mr. Sothern, in a news- 
paper article over his own name, says : " I have known 
some of our best performers who have found it neces- 
sary to first attend and see a play before they would 
allow their wives and daughters to go. Why was this 
necessary? Why, because they knew there was very 



Ethics of the Theatre 

little cleanness in those places, and who better than they 
should know ? " John Gilbert, the veteran actor, wrote 
in the North American Review, " I believe the present 
condition of the drama, both from a moral and artistic 
point of view, to be a subject for regret. Many of the 
plays that have been adopted from the French are open 
to the severest criticism on the ground of immorality." 
An actor, in passing a theatre, said to a friend of Dr. 
Cuyler, "Behind those doors lies Sodom." Edwin 
Forrest, hearing Rev. Dr. Brantley denounce the theatre 
as an immoral institution, lingered long enough to assure 
the preacher that he agreed with what he said, only he 
would make it stronger. 

Mr. William Winter, a dramatic critic, asserts that 
christian ethics on the stage would be inappropriate. 
Mr. A. M. Palmer, the Nestor of theatre managers, says 
friends as in a Review article: u The chief themes of 
witnesses t | ie theatre are now, as they ever have been, 
the passions of men — ambition and jealousy, leading to 
murder ; lust, leading to adultery and to death ; anger, 
leading to madness." Mr. Clement Scott, a distin- 
guished theatrical critic of the London press, was asked 
to give his views as to the effect of the stage upon a 
pure-minded girl who might enter the profession to 
make a livelihood and to pursue dramatic art. And 
here are his words: "A woman may take a header 
into a whirlpool and be miraculously saved ; but then she 
may be drowned. I should be sorry to expose modesty 
to the shock of that worst kind of temptation, a frivo- 
lous disregard of womanly purity. One out of a hun- 
dred may be safe ; but then she must hear things that she 
had better not listen to and witness things she had 
better not see. Stage life, according to my experience, 
has a tendency to disorder the finer feelings, to crush 



Ethics of the Theatre 

the inner nature of men and women out, and to substi- 
tute artificiality and hollowness for sincerity and truth ; 
and, mind you, I speak from an intimate experience of 
the stage extending over thirty-seven years. It is nearly 
impossible for a woman to remain pure who adopts the 
stage as a profession. Everything is against her, and 
what is more to be deplored is that a woman who 
endeavors to keep her purity is almost of necessity 
doomed to failure in her career. It is an awful thing to 
say, and it is still more terrible that it is true, but none 
who know the life of the green-room will deny it." 
And let me add that the stage is the only profession 
in which a black spot against a woman's character adds 
to her popularity. Mr. Scott admits that in spite of all 
the difficulties in the way there are men and women on 
the stage who live pure lives, and all the more honor to 
them for it; yet he insists that the stage, as it is to-day, 
is an institution which is a menace to the virtue of all 
who enter the theatrical profession. 

With the friends of the theatre as witnesses, its actors 
and play- writers and critics, the case is established that 
the stage as an institution is bad. So far as I know, 
A bad there is not a theatre in the world which 

institution does not pander to depraved tastes in order 
to make money. The plea of the managers is that the 
public are to blame because they demand such plays. 
If this be true, the public taste is depraved. It is plain, 
however, that the theatre has done much to create the 
depraved taste which it feels called upon to gratify. 
The flood of moral filth which it pours upon a com- 
munity cannot fail to degrade the people. " There is 
scarcely an evil," said Henry Ward Beecher, "incident 
to human life which may not be fully learned at the 
theatre. There one learns how pleasant a thing is vice. 



Ethics of the Theatre 

Amours are consecrated, license is prospered, and the 
young come away alive to the glorious liberty of con- 
quest and lust." 

The philosophy of all this is found in the nature of 
the actor's profession. Acting is injurious to character. 
The best acting is the worst acting. To act a part any- 
THE where is to weaken character. Every actor 

explanation j s a hypocrite while on the stage ; that is, 
he must pretend to be what he is not. He must feign 
emotions and passions good and bad. Dr. H. Clay 
Trumbull, in his book on u Border Lines in the Field 
of Doubtful Practices," gives a chapter to the theatre 
which I wish I could read to you in full, but I must be 
content with a few paragraphs. "The chief and all- 
prevailing objection to the theatre/ he says, u is that 
the profession of an actor is in and of itself unnatural, 
baleful, and radically and universally wrong ; and, be- 
cause this is so, no change of controlling influences can 
make the institution which depends on and represents 
that profession an agency of substantial good or worthy 
of christian countenance and support. On the face of 
it, the profession of an actor stands all by itself in 
demanding of its votary that his main purpose and 
endeavor shall be to seem what he is not, to appear 
something else than his real self; and herein lies the 
essential and irremediable evil of this profession. 

u That which might have been a power for good in 
creation, or in original performance, is given wholly to 
imitation or simulation, and this, too, more commonly 
acting ln tne sphere of the lower nature rather than of 
A part fa e higher, or, at all events, in the lower as well 
as the higher; for the essential requirements of dra- 
matic action call for the portrayal of the more violent and 
unworthy passions, rather than the gentler and worthier 



Ethics of the Theatre 

virtues. A man who is perhaps at heart a good and 
true man, and who has exceptional capabilities of good, 
devotes himself to seeming a bad man and to exhibiting 
the semblance of the vilest passions or of the most 
abhorrent crimes. How can such a course fail of injury 
to a noble nature ? Even if it in no degree lowers the 
tone of the nature, it inevitably restrains it within limi- 
tations all unworthy of its powers and destiny. 

" In his merging of his personality in simulation, as 
a very essential of his profession, the art of the actor 
differs from that of any other. There is nothing like it 
in the true mission or in the best work of any honest or 
reputable profession. There is nothing akin to it in 
any other approved sphere of art. A man may describe 
evil or portray it in literature, in poetry, in music, in 
sculpture, without putting himself into the exhibit of 
evil, without merging his personality in another person- 
ality ; but in the art of the actor he who would portray 
the murderer, the adulterer, the seducer, or the betrayer 
of a sacred trust, must, in order to be the best actor, 
strive to think, and feel, and speak, and act as if he 
were himself this very evil doer. 

" An English writer, some time since, computed that 
Mr. (now Sir) Henry Irving had committed at least 
fifteen thousand murders on the stage, while Mr. Barry 
acted Sullivan had added at least two thousand more 
crime S |- a g e murders than this to his list, and Mr. 
Charles Wyndham had been divorced from twenty-eight 
hundred wives on the stage ; that Mrs. Bancroft had in 
the same public place been 'foully betrayed or abducted ' 
thirty-two hundred times ; that Miss Ada Cavendish had 
been ' betrayed, deserted or abducted ' fifty-six hundred 
times ; and so on along the list of popular actors. 

64 Can any intelligent person, any person of refined 



Ethics of the Theatre 

sensibilities or with a fair knowledge of psychological 
laws and influences, believe for one moment that the 
deliberate and purposed indulgence in simulated evil to 
any such extent has had no effect in deadening the moral 
nature of the actor to the enormity of the offences simu- 
lated or dallied with? " 

THERE IS A WIDE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 
THE CHURCH AND THE STAGE. The pur- 
pose of the stage, as we have seen, is to teach men how 
church to act a part. The purpose of the Church of 
and stage Christ is to teach men how to be real. The 
purpose of the stage is to amuse ; the purpose of the 
church is to save. The symbol of the Church of Christ 
is the Cross ; the symbol of the stage ought to be a 
baby's rattle. The purpose of the stage is to make 
money, and managers are not slow to do so even at the 
expense of good morals ; the purpose of the Church of 
Christ is to make character, and good morals are not for 
sale at any price. The stage gives what the people 
want, and, sad to say, the worst plays draw the biggest 
crowds; the purpose of the Church of Christ is to give 
what the people need, regardless of its popularity. The 
stage ministers to u the lust of the flesh, to the lust of 
the eye, and the pride of life, which is not of the 
Father " ; the purpose of the Church of Christ is to 
crucify these things. The stage is a caterer; the Church 
of Christ is a prophet. The stage panders ; the church 
rebukes. The stage in its tragedies glorifies revenge, 
which leads to murder ; the Church of Christ teaches 
forgiveness of enemies and the patient endurance of 
wrong. The tendency of the stage is to make people 
childish in their feverish desire for diversion ; the work 
of the church is to make people child-like in their faith 
and love and simplicity of character. The tendency of 



Ethics of the Theatre 

the stage is to keep the race in its childhood of self- 
gratifying amusement; the work of the church is to 
lead the race into the manhood of self-sacrificing 
achievement. The foot-lights are suggestive of the fact 
that the lower tendencies of human nature are there 
brought into prominence ; the Church of Christ would 
magnify the head-light and heart-light that reveal and 
develop the higher attributes of our being. In a word, 
the real church is the incarnation of the spirit of 
Christ — pure, humble, self-sacrificing and forgiving. 
The stage is the incarnation of the spirit of the world — 
lustful, proud, selfish and revengeful. And what God 
hath put asunder no man can join together. 

The charge made by several yellowish journals that 
my sermons on the "Ethics of Amusements " have been 
answers sensational is true only to the extent that the 
TO critics utterance of unvarnished truth is apt to make 
a sensation, especially when it strikes popular errors and 
sins. 

The charge that I do not attend the theatre, and there- 
fore have no right to have an opinion, is not reasonable. 
One need not get drunk or tell a lie to know what 
drunkenness and lying are. I have never seen leprosy 
or small-pox, but I have a fair idea as to what they are. 
I have read bill-boards, theatrical notices, and some of 
the plays. I have gathered the testimony of actors, 
theatre-goers, managers and stage-fixers, who are com- 
petent witnesses. Indeed, people who do not go to the 
theatre may be better qualified to judge of its ethics than 
those who have habituated themselves to its atmosphere. 
One can live in a lazaretto until its sights, sounds and 
odors cease to be repulsive. The habitual theatre-goer 
is apt to become blunted in his finer sensibilities. 

One critic declares that the theatre is intended only 



Ethics of the Theatre 

to amuse, and should not, therefore, be expected to teach 
morals and religion ; let people go to church for these. 
And herein is its viciousness. It was proved, I believe, 
last Sunday evening, that the pleasure-seeking spirit in 
the individual does not give pleasure in the long run, 
and ends in degeneracy. As with the individual, so 
with an institution. If its one purpose is to amuse, re- 
gardless of morals or religion, it cannot fail to degenerate. 
Another critic insists that we must draw a distinction 
between bad plays and good plays, bad actors and good 
actors. I have conceded that there may be good actors, 
the good so f ar as one can De good whose business is 

and the bad dissimulation ; but it is never good to pre- 
tend to be good. Prayer on the stage is rank blas- 
phemy. Even if the actor really prays, he has no right 
to do it to be seen of men. Playing at religion is debas- 
ing to actors and beholders. The modern stage had its 
birth at a time during the dark ages when men were 
playing at religion in their daily lives, and they would 
not, of course, refuse to play at it for the entertainment 
of an audience. Lecky is right when he says that the 
" Mystery Plays" led to the degeneration of religion, 
and it is equally true that the degeneration of religion 
led to the u Mystery Plays." Playing at marriage and 
divorce on the stage weakens, if it does not destroy, the 
sanctity of marriage and keeps the divorce courts busy. 
Playing at vice cannot fail, sooner or later, to make an 
actor vicious, while playing at virtue makes virtue 
unreal and opens the way for vice. It is one of the dis- 
couraging signs of the times to-day that religious plays 
are becoming popular. It proves that the religious 
instinct in theatre-going people is a thing to play with ;' 
and, w T hile faith, prayer and praise are feigned, it is 
evident that real faith, prayer and praise are lacking. 



Ethics of the Theatre 

The Passion Play, though performed by a simple coun- 
try people with deep religious feeling, has not improved 
the state of true religion at Oberammergau ; and I can 
think of nothing that would go farther toward breaking 
down real Christianity than the presentation of this 
farcical crucifixion of our Lord in the theatres of the 
world. Portraying the sacred and holy feelings of the 
soul for the entertainment of an audience is an incon- 
gruous proceeding ; and feigning sacred and holy feelings 
is cant, which, on or off the stage, weakens religious 
character. The fact that one is paid a hundred dollars 
a night for such dissimulation does not help the case. 

We are told that there are bad christians and wicked 
preachers. Yes, and I fear that the theatre, with the 
atmosphere of sham and pretense which it has created 
actors and an d fostered, is largely to blame for the bad 
preachers types of Christianity seen in many pulpits 
and pews. The reality of religion is in perpetual con- 
flict with the unreality of the stage ; and when the stage 
succeeds in making the pulpit u stagey "it has destroyed 
its power for good. 

There are fallen preachers, but all the critics admit 
that such is the exception. The rule is that preachers 
are good men, and if they are bad it is in spite of the 
church, which, as an institution, is expected to make 
them good. When a preacher falls into sin it creates 
surprise, and he must at once surrender his pulpit; but 
not so with the actor. Good actors and actresses are 
the exception. If one is known to be moral and relig- 
ious the fact attracts attention, and when one falls into 
sin neither he nor she is compelled to leave the stage. 
When the theatre-going public hear of it their morbid 
curiosity prompts them to crowd the house and increase 
the receipts. Managers are aware of this, and hence 






Ethics of the Theatre 

are not careful to conceal any scandal which will call an 
actor or actress more prominently before the public. 

All this goes to prove that the church, as an institu- 
tion, is good, and that the immoral christian and 
preacher is the exception, while the theatre, as an institu- 
tion, is bad, and the moral actor or actress is the excep- 
tion. To say that there are bad bakers and candlestick- 
makers is wide of the mark, because everyone knows 
that baking bread and making candles are not immoral 
institutions. If they are bad it is in spite of their busi- 
ness. If a preacher or church member is bad it is in 
spite of the church, which would make him good ; but 
if an actor is good it is in spite of the theatre, which, as 
an institution, tends to make him bad. 

Several critics contend that the theatre of to-day is 

better than it was in former years, but the facts are 

against them. The theatre which Plato, Aristotle, 

Socrates, Cato and Tertullian denounced had 

A MISTAKE . -,_ 

no women on its stage. Women were not 
allowed on the stage until about the seventeenth century. 
The entrance of women into almost any department of 
life means an infusion of virtue; but not so with the 
stage, which uses woman to-day for the display of her 
shame more than of her virtues. Those who insist on 
being only good women on the stage do not grow rich. 
In the lowest theatres woman is most in evidence. For 
this reason I do not believe that the theatre in China and 
Japan is as bad as it is in America. Prominent pagans, 
on their first visits to our country, have been shocked by 
the indecencies they have been compelled to see in 
theatres to which they had been taken by their wealthy 
friends. Some theatres are, of course, worse than 
others. They differ not so much in degrees of goodness 
as of badness. During the past few weeks a play has 



Ethics of the Theatre 

been running in Boston with large audiences, the im- 
moralities of which shocked even Chicago and led 
reputable citizens in Springfield to protest against its 
production in that city. I never heard any protest in 
Boston, And this play is not the exception. The foul 
play, with its foulness more or less veiled, is the rule. 
The managers of theatres are in it for money, and they 
know that such plays draw the big crowds. The plays 
in which the simulation of virtue predominates over that 
of vice, I repeat, are not the most profitable. They are 
used with rare skill as decoys for good people. 

The plea that christians should ally themselves with 
the good on the stage is more specious than convincing. 
You cannot ally yourself with the good without also 
A misleading being allied with the evil, for on the stage 
PLEA the good and the evil are in close alliance. 

Admiral Cervera of the Spanish Navy seems to have 
been a good man. Would it have been possible for me 
during the war with Spain to have allied myself with 
Admiral Cervera without becoming the ally of Spain? 
Certainly not, for Admiral Cervera was a part of a great 
institution known as the Spanish Government, and every 
ally of his was also an ally of Spain. So one cannot 
ally himself with the good in the theatre without being 
also an ally of the bad. The good in it is a small part 
of a great evil institution. An ally with Cervera would 
have been claimed by Spain, and an ally of the good in 
the theatre is claimed by the friends of this evil institu- 
tion. It would be amusing, if it were not so pitiable, 
to see good men in alliance with the theatre spending so 
much time apologizing for the company they are in. 
They admit that some plays and players are very bad, 
and that the theatre, as an institution, is not good ; but 
they hope that their presence with them will be salutary. 



Ethics of the Theatre 

I verily believe they are mistaken. A drop of pure 
water will not make much impression upon a goblet of 
ink, but a drop of ink can ruin a goblet of pure water. 
Unless pure water wants to be converted into ink it had 
better keep separate from the ink. 

The only way to win people of the world to the true 
christian life is to show them that we have something 
better than they have. People will not eat God's 
manna and manna, which we recommend, while they 
onions see us turning from it and gorging ourselves 

with the onions of Egypt. And the only way to reform 
the theatre is to convert it into something else. As long 
as it remains a theatre it carries with it the elements of 
degeneracy. The playhouse, if run to make money, 
becomes the moral pest-house by a process of natural 
law. Solon denounced the actor's profession as " tend- 
ing, by its simulation of evil character, and by its 
expression of sentiment not genuine or sincere, to cor- 
rupt the integrity of human dealings." Rousseau says 
of the stage : u It is the art of dissimulation, of assum- 
ing a foreign character and of appearing different from 
what a man really is, of falling into a passion without a 
cause, and of saying what he does not think as naturally 
as if he did." Archbishop Tillotson, Sir Matthew Hale, 
William Wilberforce and Dr. Rush join with Solon and 
Rousseau in condemnation of the theatre on the ground 
that it is a " nursery of licentiousness and vice." 

One of my critics denounces Macready and Fanny 
Kemble as cranks for turning against the stage, which 
had enriched them. If cranks, they are certainly in 
good company. The actress, Mrs. Siddons, said that 
play-acting is a business u unworthy of a woman.'' 
Montague Stanley, a young actor of note, called it a 
most ungodly profession. Madame Janauschek said : 



Ethics of the Theatre 

44 1 am glad when fortune gives me the opportunity by 
my advice to keep any good girl out of a life which, 
nine times out of ten, is one of misery or aimless selfish- 
ness. The best thing for a young girl to do, no matter 
how great she expects to become, is to keep away from 
the theatre and do anything but go upon the stage. This 
is what I tell them all." The brief career of Adoniram 
Judson on the stage confirmed the claim that the theatre 
behind the foot-lights is bad. John B. Gough, in his 
youth, became stage-struck ; but when he got a glimpse 
of the sham and the hollowness, the coarseness and pro- 
fanity which prevail behind the scenes, he tells us that 
he felt "perfectly satisfied with a three-weeks' experi- 
ence." What a loss to the world if Adoniram Judson 
and John B. Gough had chosen acting as their profes- 
sion and persisted in it. 

The police of our great cities bear testimony to the 
fact that the theatre is a foster-mother of crime among 
the youth. The director of the city prison in Paris says : 
police u If a noted play of a vicious character has 

testimony \ )een p U j- on ^q boards, I very soon find it 

out by the number of young fellows who come into my 
custody." Thirteen out of fifteen young men from the 
country employed in a New York publishing house 
were led to destruction within a few years by the 
theatre. 

The moral quality of theatre-going does not depend 
upon the play. That play is a part of a great institu- 
tion. If you go to the theatre you will very properly be 
judged, not by the play you see, but by the institution 
that you patronize. The plays which are better than 
the institution do not lift it up, but rather the institution 
drags down the play to its level. The whole is stronger 
than any part, and the whole gives moral quality to 



Ethics of the Theatre 

every part. For a person who desires both safety and 
usefulness the wise course is to refrain from theatre- 
going. If you care not for safety you have not that 
stamina of character which has a wholesome fear of 
evil. If you care not for usefulness you certainly have 
the not the spirit of Him who went about doing 

safeway good, nor of him who said, " If eating meat 
make my brother to stumble, I will eat no flesh while the 
world stands." Let us give ourselves only to the things 
that are " pure, lovely and of good report." If such a 
course be self-denial, remember the words of Him 
"whose we are and whom we serve," "If any man 
would be my disciple, let him deny himself and take up 
his cross and follow me." Your self-denial will bring 
greater joy than indulgence. 



Ethics of the Dance 

" A time to dance." Ecclesiastes iii : 4. 

" Whether ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the 
glory of God." I Cor. x : 31. 

MAY I DANCE? Yes, when you are so happy 
that you cannot help it. Children often dance 
with joy when mother is seen returning from a long 
journey. And, gray head that you are, if you are so 
rilled with ecstatic delight that it runs from your heart 
into your hands and feet, why clap your hands and 
shuffle your feet. No harm will be done. 

Such joy may be religious. Miriam, when she saw 
that God had delivered her people and destroyed their 
enemies in the Red Sea, w r as so filled and thrilled with 
religious j ov that it was natural for her to take her tim- 
DANCE k re ]_ anQ i g Q f or th in dances with her maidens 

who shared her joy. When David saw the ark returning 
from its captivity he was so happy that he danced before 
the Lord with all his might. His wife despised him for it, 
not because it was unmanly for him to do it, but because 
she did not share his jo}^. When the daughter of Jephtha 
looked down the road and saw her father returning with 
the trophies of victory she expressed her joy by going forth 
to meet him with timbrels and dances. After David's 
brilliant victories over the Philistines the women became 
so enthusiastic that they could express their joy only in 
songs and dances. As the elder brother of the parable 
approached the house he heard music and dancing, for 
all the household was thrown into a delirium of delight 
by the return of the prodigal. He complained because 
he was not grateful. Gratitude never grumbles. The 
Psalmist exhorts us to praise God with the timbrel and 



Ethics of the Dance 

dance. In his prediction of the happy time when Israel 
shall be restored li and they shall not sorrow any more 
at all," Jeremiah said, " then shall the virgins rejoice in 
the dance." 

If, therefore, there ever comes a time in your life 
when in grateful joy for some blessing from God you 
become so happy that you cannot refrain from dancing, 
why dance with all your might. Some cold, ungrateful 
daughter of Saul may complain that you have laid aside 
your dignity if you have not lost your senses, but you 
need not fear such criticism as much as you fear the 
phlegmatic state of heart that prompts it. In revivals 
of the old times men and women became so happy that 
they danced for joy even in church, and no one, except 
the spiritual icicles that hung around, was unduly 
shocked. A religion that makes a man dance for joy is 
better than a religion that freezes him to his seat with a 
frigid conventionalism. 

The dances of the Bible which are commended were 
expressions of religious gratitude and joy. Of this bib- 
lical dance Dr. Lyman Beecher says : ( i ) fc ; Dancing was 
biblical a religious act, both of the true and also of idol 
dances worship. (2) It was practiced exclusively on 
joyous occasions, such as festivals or great victories. (3) 
It was performed by maidens only. (4) It was performed 
only in day-time in the open air, in highways, fields or 
groves. (5) Men who perverted dancing from a sacred 
use to purposes of amusement were deemed infamous. 
(6) No instances of dancing are found upon record in 
the Bible in which two sexes united in the exercises, 
either in or out of worship or as an amusement. (7) 
There is no instance upon record of social dancing for 
amusement except that of the vain fellows devoid of 
shame ; of the irreligious families described by Job, 



Ethics of the Dance 

which produced increased impiety and ended in destruc- 
tion ; of Herodias, which terminated in the rash vow of 
Herod and the murder of John the Baptist." 

We see that the Bible " time to dance" was when 
dancing really expressed great joy, when the sexes 
danced apart and when the surroundings were such as 
to promote health. 

But there are some very objectionable dances in the 
Bible. When Moses came down from the mount, as he 
approached the camp he heard music and dancing. The 

people were worshipping, men and women to- 
biblical gether, before the calf which Aaron had made. 

The record says, u The people sat down to eat 
and drink, and rose up to play." Eminent commentators 
agree with Adam Clark in declaring that the word u play" 
carries with it loathsome lewdness and abominable prac- 
tices. The Israelites had not only turned to idols, but 
had adopted the unspeakable horrors which went with 
promiscuous dancing in the calf worship of Egypt, 
which made the sacred groves of Greece the plague spot 
of the world, and which still exist in some of the tem- 
ples of India. In Pagan religions the dance has been 
the promoter of debauchery. The patriarch Job gives 
us a picture of the wicked, worldly classes of his day in 
the words, u They send forth their little ones like a 
flock, and their children dance. They take the timbrel 
and harp and rejoice at the sound of the organ. They 
spend their days in w T ealth, and in a moment they go 
down to the grave. Therefore they say unto God, 'De- 
part from us, for we desire not the knowledge of thy 
ways. What is the Almighty that we should serve 
him, and what profit should we have if we pray unto 
him? ' " (Job xxi : 1 1-15.) The teaching of this Scrip- 
ture is that a dancing, dissipating life leads men to 



Ethics of the Dance 

rebel against God because they desire not the knowledge 
of His ways, to despise the Almighty and refuse to serve 
Him, and to give up praying because they see no profit 
in it. Such a life to-day, as in the time of Job, goes 
easily with rebellion, blasphemy and prayerlessness. 

The scene in the palace of Herod, when the daughter 
of Herodias danced for the amusement of the company, 
gives an instance of the use of dancing which is com- 
mon to-day. The woman danced, not because she 
enjoyed dancing, but because the guests enjoyed it; and 
they enjoyed it because it appealed to their lewd, sensual 
natures. When a man of wealth wishes to please a 
company of his sensual companions he adds to the w^ine 
of the banquet a vaudeville entertainment, which means 
that women, whom the dancing master has taught to 
conquer shame, will appear and make a vulgar display 
of themselves in the dance. And it is a sign of relapse 
into Pompeian shamelessness when such entertainments 
are furnished after Sunday dinners in high-class hotels, 
in the presence of women as well as men. The dance 
for the entertainment of others is of Pagan origin and is 
apt to bring with it Pagan morals. 

The modern social dance, however, is not akin to the 
religious, joyful dance of the Bible, nor to the Pagan 
dance for the enjoyment of beholders. No one now 
modern pretends to dance, except a small religious sect, 
dances because he wishes to give expression to exuber- 
ance of religious feeling. Nor is the dance intended 
to express happiness, but rather to produce happiness. 
People do not dance because they are happy so much as 
because they want to be happy. They go to the ball for 
a good time. 

And it ought to be said that dancing is practiced very 
little for the sake of physical exercise. The gymnasium* 



Ethics of the Dance 

croquet, lawn-tennis, golf and the bicycle are recog- 
nized as better for exercise than the dance. The claim 
that dancing is good exercise should have no weight, 
for it is not usually done for that purpose. It is simply 
an indulgence and a dissipation. Dancing exhausts and 
debilitates more than it builds up. 

The plea that one acquires grace of manners by danc- 
ing has been overworked. The grace of the dance is 
apt to be artificial and less pleasing than the natural ease 
of manner which comes from conscious rectitude and 
high aims in life. Says Dr. Brooks : " Compare the 
natural grace of a pure girl, taught by a pure mother 
and by a native grace of delicacy, with the disgusting 
affectation and brazen effrontery of a pert miss who has 
been trained by a foreign dancing-master not to blush, 
and you can judge for yourself whether there is any 
force in the oft-repeated plea that children should be 
sent to a dancing-school to learn manners." 

Not with the religious, joyful dance of the Hebrews, 
nor with the minuet and square dance of our fathers and 
mothers, nor with dancing as an exercise or as a culti- 
as an vator of good manners, but with the dance as 

institution an institution have we to deal. There is no 
moral harm in the square dance, provided you can keep it 
square. But I learn that it is next to impossible to con- 
fine dancing to the square dance, even in the most select 
company. The modern dance is the round dance, with 
all that it means of indelicacy, dissipation and debauch- 
ery. Its home is the dance-hall, where the lowest disrepu- 
tables congregate ; the variety theatre, where it makes its 
display of spectacular obscenity ; the public ball-room, 
where women, good and bad, swirl in the arms of men; 
the select company in the house, where liberties are 
taken under the spell of music which would be shocking 



Ethics of the Dance 

without the musical accompaniment. This round dance, 
born in the low dance-houses of Paris, taught by French 
dancing-masters in all countries, popular because people 
of high position with low moral tone indulge in it, is 
finding recognition at college commencements, on excur- 
sions and picnics, and even in the homes of some chris- 
tian people. 

Against this modern dance Perry Wayland Sinks, in 
a book recently published, entitled, "Popular Amuse- 
ments and the Christian Life," brings the following 
seven indictments : 

(i) The modern dance violates the universally recog- 
nized laws of health. He says, "The dance was not 
originated for the promotion of health. It was never 
laws of designed to be, and in fact never has been, pro- 
health mo tive of health. Viewed as an exercise, as at 
present conducted, it is in violation of the soundest hy- 
gienic laws. The exercise of dancing, under limiting con- 
ditions of time, place, scope and participants, might be 
eminently healthful. Such it might be as an element of 
the gymnasium curriculum. But the dance of to-day is 
not conducted for the purpose of promoting health and 
longevity. Viewed as an exercise, leaving out of ac- 
count moral considerations, the dance as an institution 
of society violates the laws of health." And he further 
says, u We will dismiss this indictment with a quotation 
from the valuable treatise of Dr. H. C. Haydn : 4 Pro- 
verbially, the dance seeks the cover of the night. 
Dancing assemblies are seldom well under way till it is 
time they were dispersed, and often do not end till the 
small hours of the morning. The simple fact that 
dancing assemblies seek not recreation with a due regard 
to freshness and vigor the next day, but satiety, ignoring 
the laws of health and rest ordained for us by the Crea- 



Ethics of the Dance 

tor, ranks dancing as ordinarily pursued among the 
dissipations which both the moralist and the physician 
are bound to proscribe. They have no choice in the 
premises. They are bound to do so.' " 

(2) u The modern dance has contributed greatly to 
the emptiness, aimlessness and selfishness of the social 
life of the times." Conversation is not in demand. 

The cultivation of the foot has displaced 

VS. CONVERSATION . , ,..<., 

to a large extent the cultivation of the 
head. If you ever tried to entertain a young lady at a 
ball for five minutes after the music began, I am sure you 
felt that the head had been swallowed by the feet and 
that the only response she was then capable of was the 
physical response to music. 

(3) u The modern dance thus assails the highest 
intellectual improvement of its votaries and of society 
when given rein." Time and taste for mental improve- 
vs. mental ment are crowded out. If the use of mem- 
improvement b ers increase their size, and if things con- 
tinue as they are in some quarters, there is coming a 
generation with very small heads and very big feet. It 
takes little intellectual effort to dance well. Dogs, cats 
and monkeys are man's rivals in this accomplishment. 

(4) u The modern dance exerts a positive influence 
in withstanding the Spirit of God calling the human 
soul to a christian life.'' All evangelistic workers know 
that the love of the dance and the conviction which god- 
less people have that the modern dance is not a proper 
amusement for christians is a common obstacle in the 
way of young people, who but for this objection would 
enter upon the christian life. From a christian point of 
view this fact is a terrible indictment of the dance. 

(5) u The modern dance operates, both in the indi- 
vidual and in the church, in retarding the growth and 



Ethics of the Dance 

stabilization of christian character and in hindering the 
greatest efficiency and success of christian effort." The 
vs. christian restrictions placed upon the Lenten season 
character prove this, and the observation of every 
pastor teaches him that the dance hinders the growth 
and usefulness of christians who indulge in it. 

(6) "The modern dance is inimical to the highest 
enlightened christian consciousness, as voiced by a con- 
census of opinion from the christian church, including 
the Roman Catholic, and from earliest times." 

Several years ago the General Assembly of the Pres- 
byterian Church put itself on record in these words : 
"We regard the promiscuous round dancing by mem- 
vs. christian bers of the church as a mournful incon- 
church sistency , and the giving of parties for such 

dancing on the part of the heads of families as tending 
to compromise their religious profession, and the sending 
of children of christian parents to the dancing-school as 
a sad error in family discipline." 

Among the " General Rules" of the Methodist-Epis- 
copal Church, its members are called upon to abstain 
from u all such diversions as cannot be used in the name 
of the Lord Tesus," and this has always been 

METHODIST J . . J 

interpreted as including dancing. 1 he vow 
that every Episcopalian takes at confirmation, if consci- 
entiously kept, would keep every member of that church 
from the ball-room and lead them to censure the modern 
dance. Eminent bishops of that church have spoken on 

the subject in the strongest terms. Bishop 

episcopal r J nr , * 46T ., - A 'K 

Hopkins or. Vermont said : " In the period or 

youthful education I have shown that dancing is charge- 
able with waste of time, the interruption of useful study, 
the indulgence of personal vanity and display, and the 
premature excitement of the passions. No argument can 
make it consistent with baptism." 



Ethics of the Dance 

Bishop Meade of Virginia said : u Social dancing is 
not among the neutral things which, within certain 
limits, we may do at pleasure among the things lawful 
but not expedient ; but it is in itself wrong, improper, 
and of bad effect." 

Bishop Mcllvain of Ohio said : " The only line I 
would draw is entire exclusion." He declared that " it 
is renounced in baptism, its renunciation is ratified in 
confirmation and professed in every participation of the 
Lord's Supper." 

Bishop Coxe of Western New York, in a Lenten 
pastoral said : " The enormities of theatrical exhibitions 
and the lasciviousness of dances are so disgraceful to the 
age and so irreconciliable with the gospel of Christ that 
I feel it my duty to the souls of my flock to warn those 
who run with the world ' to the same excess of riot ' in 
these things that they presume not to come to the holy 
table. Classes preparing for confirmation are informed 
that I will not lay hands knowingly on any one who is 
not prepared to renounce such things, with other abom- 
inations of the world, the flesh and the devil." 

The Plenary Council of the Roman Catholic Church, 

which met in Baltimore a few years ago, sent out the 

following : " We consider it to be our duty to w r arn our 

people against those amusements which may 

CATHOLIC 

easily become to them an occasion of sin, and 
especially against the fashionable dances which, as at 
present carried on, are revolting to every feeling of deli- 
cacy and propriety and are fraught with the greatest 
danger to morals." 

It will be seen that the Episcopal Church, which 
worldly Baptists, Methodists and Presbyterians some- 
times join because they imagine that in its fellowship 
they can be as worldly as they please while they keep up 



Ethics of the Dance 

the forms of religion, is really very strict in its require- 
ments. The rector who advocates the modern dance, 
and the Episcopalian who indulges in it, violate their 
baptism and confirmation vows. The old historic 
church is true to good morals and a high standard of 
spirituality, however recreant some of her sons and 
daughters may be. The stigma should not rest upon 
the church, but upon the faithless members who break 
their solemn vow. 

(7) " The modern dance, in its nature, in its tenden- 
cies and in its results, is dangerous to social purity. In 
vs. social other words, for we cannot evade the issue, 
purity j t j s ^ as at p resen t indulged in, fundamentally 

and necessarily immoral." 

We dislike to tell the truth about the dance under this 
head, but for the sake of the young men and women 
whose danger is that they think no evil, it ought to be 
told. 

Dr. Horace Bushnell was led to say of the modern 
forms of the dance : " They are the contrived possibili- 
ties of license which belong to high life when it runs 
low." 

Gail Hamilton wrote : u The very pose of the parties 
suggests impurity." The central source of the attraction 
of the modern dance is sex, and an amusement that de- 
pends upon sex for popularity is dangerous. 
witnesses i, _ r „_, 11 . -r . i , 

bays Dr. Wilkinson : "It mingles the sexes in 

such closeness of personal approach and contact as, out- 
side of the dance, is nowhere tolerable in reputable so- 
ciety." The track of the ball-room is strewn with wrecks 
of character and lives. Said Dr. Howard Crosby : 6 4 The 
foundation of a large amount of domestic misery and 
domestic crime, which startles us after its public out- 
cropping, was laid when parents allowed the sacredness 



Ethics of the Dance 

of their daughters' persons and the purity of their maid- 
enly instincts to be rudely shocked in the waltz." Mr. 
T. A. Faulkner, at one time proprietor of the Los 
Angeles Dancing Academy and ex-president of the 
Dancing Masters' Association of the Pacific Coast, has 
given it as his deliberate opinion that u two-thirds of 
the girls who are ruined fall through the influence of 
the dance." The matron of a home for fallen women in 
Los Angeles declares that u seven-tenths of the women 
who go there have fallen through the dance and its 
influence." Archbishop Spaulding of New York is 
reported to have said that nineteen out of twenty of the 
fallen women who come to the confessional have 
ascribed their fail from virtue to the influence of the 
dance. 

With all these facts before us can a christian minister 
remain silent while this juggernaut of evil destroys the 
virtue and wrecks the lives of so many? 

No christian can afford to indulge in a pastime that 
links him with a great immoral institution like the 
modern dance. If he should have stamina of character 
to resist its evil tendency, he, nevertheless, will lose his 
influence as a spiritual force, and his example may lead 
others who are weaker to the wreck cf their morals. 
There is danger in indulgence, and there is safety, joy 
and usefulness in whatever self-denial your refusal to 
indulge may mean. 

Let everyone take Christ into his heart and life and 
He will be guide and protector. Do what pleases Him 
and you will always be on the safe side. In His strength 
take for a motto and live up to it : " Whether ye eat or 
drink or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God." 



Ethics of the Card Table 

" Redeeming the time." Eph. v : 16. 

/^ARD PLAYING is a game of chance. " That 
whist and euchre and other games of cards are 
games of chance, " says Dr. Trumbull, "cannot be 
properly denied. That a measure of skill can be shown 
in these is sure, and that there are good players and 
poor players is unmistakable. Yet, in the long run, the 
element of chance is the chief factor in these games, and 
this it is that gives zest in their playing. The question 
as to the element of chance in such games has been 
again and again tested by experiment, and practically 
with the same result. A while ago the experiment on 
an extended scale w T as made in this way : Skilled players 
were pitted against unskilled players in a large series of 
games, say a thousand in number; it was found that the 
percentage won in the one case and in the other did 
not materially differ. Chance rather than skill was the 
determining factor." 

A game of chance always has its dangers. The first 
danger is that it will create and cultivate a dependence 
upon luck in life. It is a calamity when a young man 
begins to imagine that he is a lucky individual, for he 
will then begin to depend upon his luck rather than 
upon honest, patient labor. This illusion tears up the 
foundation of character and leaves little upon which to 
build. Dr. Trumbull gives a striking illustration of this 
fact : "A young man who was an active member of a 
prominent church, and who had recently married a lovely, 
48 



Ethics of the Card Table 

christian young woman, took a ticket at a church fair 
and won first prize. He was delighted. Many of his 
friends envied him. His mother, however, told him 
that his success would lead him to value luck rather 
than skill. He laughed at her fears and thought him- 
self in no danger. He tried in other raffles. He won 
prize after prize. He was called a wonderfully lucky 
fellow. He finally won a prize of a fine horse. No one 
knew, however, of the many blanks he had drawn in the 
meantime. He seemed at the time to be a prosperous 
business man. But one day his place of business was 
closed. It was found that in order to obtain ready money 
for tickets in raffles he had mortgaged his entire stock of 
goods, and then had forged the name of his father-in-law 
to promissory notes, and now was a fugitive from justice, 
deserting his home and family." 

As an incidental result of a lottery by which, years 
ago, a fine public library was built in a western State, 
there were five suicides. When the victims discovered 
that they were not lucky and their money was gone with- 
out any equivalent, they killed themselves. This fatal 
dependence upon luck is ruining thousands of our young 
men and women. 

The gambling spirit is rife. The daily press fosters 
it by giving tips on the races. The public officials pass 
it unnoticed, because, as some of them declare, it is a 
necessity in large cities. Periodicals are published in 
its interest. There are to-day in the United States forty 
weeklies devoted to sports in which gambling is a 
prominent feature. The result is seen in the increase of 
defaultings and forgeries. Chauncey M. Depew says, 
"Ninety per cent, of the defalcations and thefts and 
ruin of youth among people who are employed in places 
of trust are due directly to gambling." 



Ethics of the Card Table 

The card table is the instrument of gambling the world 
over. There are many other ways of gambling, but no- 
where do they displace the card table. This gives to 
the card table a malodor of evil association. A game of 
cards suggests to the beholder suicides, embezzlements,, 
defalcations, quarrels, wrecked lives and ruined homes. 
The single game of cards cannot be separated from these 
evil associations. 

Can anyone, much less a christian, afford to become 
suggestive of all this abomination every time he plays a 
game of cards? Can anyone afford to fill his home with 
such unholy associations? The plea that children should 
be allowed to play cards in the home, so that they will 
not play in objectionable places, is not well founded. 
They are the more apt to play elsewhere after they have 
been taught to play at home, and it is a sad fact that 
many professional gamblers of New York were first 
taught games of chance by their mothers and sisters in 
the home. There is often an intimate relation between 
the card party in the home and the life of reckless 
gambling in the pool-room and at the race-track. John 
Phillip Quinn, who kept a gambling-house for twenty- 
five years, declared, after his conversion, that card 
playing in the house was "a kindergarten for the 
gambling saloon." Many a criminal has confessed that 
the taste for gambling which led to his ruin began in 
the parlor while he was playing cards with sisters and 
friends. Is it safe to sport with eddies above the rapids 
which flow so swiftly toward the Niagara of ruin? 
Even if we should be strong enough to keep out of the 
rapids, our example may entice our weaker brother to 
his destruction, and there is, to be sure, no one before 
me who will ask with Cain, u Am I my brother's 
keeper?" The Cainism which asks that question is a 



Ethics of the Card Table 

bird of darkness which cannot live in the light of the 
nineteenth century. "No man lives unto himself." 
Every one of us is responsible for our influence, and to 
say that you care not whether you help or hinder your 
neighbor in his struggles after a better life is to reveal a 
barbarism alien not only to the Bible, but even to the 
best sentiments of worldly people. 

The card table, if it does not lead to gambling, be- 
comes a fascination which leads its votaries to consume 
time that might be spent so as to bring greater happi- 
ness in the long run. There is no mental improvement 
at the card table, and you learn nothing of importance. 
Games of skill like chess, checkers, tennis, croquet, 
baseball and such like are not apt to throw an evil spell 
over us which will cause us to spend hours, days, weeks, 
months and years, every spare moment in their indul- 
gence. They require some intellectual exercise, and 
are apt to weary us before they ruin us. But not so 
with cards. There are few who have the will power to 
play cards only as a recreation and keep themselves to 
rational hours. But many are so interested by the 
game that they forget the flight of time and are ready at 
any time of day or night to waste hours trying their 
luck. Take a young man who spends ten hours a day 
as clerk in a store. A good book or magazine would 
refresh him and impart knowledge useful to him in the 
future. An hour or two given to music would be a 
complete change and an exhilaration. After a few 
years he would have a store of knowledge, the mental 
training in getting which has fitted him for high posi- 
tion in church or state. But suppose he spends his 
evenings in playing cards, — at the end of ten years he 
will be weaker intellectually and less fitted to fill posi- 
tions of trust. Time is capital which we should invest 



Ethics of the Card Table 

as wisely as we invest our money. To squander time 
means more waste than squandering money. We con- 
tend that card playing simply burns up time and leaves 
in the character only cinders and ashes. 

The card table, when stakes or prizes are offered to 
the best players does not lead to gambling, it is gam- 
bling, and is a violation of the laws of several States. It 
fosters the desire to get something for nothing, which is 
the essence of robberv. It furnishes the excitement 
w T hich throws its spell over young men and women and 
leads them rapidly to ruin. In principle it savors of 
the bucket-shop, the pool-room and the race-track. It 
is the foster-mother of dishonesty. It is the Louisiana 
lottery with painted cheeks and adorned in good clothes. 
It is high society's contribution to the forces which 
carry men and women to the penitentiary. It is a hin- 
drance to the growth of manly, honest character, because 
it shows to young men a w x ay of getting money without 
working for it. Whatever may be said of a game of 
cards simply for the pleasure of winning, there is no 
argument in defense of card playing for any kind of 
stakes which will not justify with equal force any other 
form of gambling. We frequently see boys throwing 
pennies "for keeps" on the sidewalks, and the police 
have to break up such groups of embryonic robbers. 
We can see at a glance that the law is right, if we 
are to raise honest citizens whose industry and char- 
acter will be an honor to the nation. But the police 
must keep out of the private preserves called a parlor, 
where the spirit of gambling is being fostered as really 
as among the tough boys of the streets. The progres- 
sive euchre in which the stakes are called prizes is 
gambling. The players in the parlor may be better 
people than the players in the dives, but they are doing 
the same thing with the same motive. 



Ethics of the Card Table 

The card table is the enemy of a deeply spiritual and 
active christian life. Card parties are sapping the 
spiritual life of some churches. It is a well-known fact 
that the churches whose leaders approve of the card 
table are spiritually lifeless. They may be active in 
ritualistic observances and in charitable work, but as 
soul-saving institutions they do not remind one of the 
churches of apostolic times. It may be that some 
christians can bear the influence and atmosphere of the 
card table without degenerating into merely nominal 
church members. In my observation of more than 
twenty-five years I have found one man who seemed to 
be an exception, but his wife was not an exception. I 
have known many young men who at their baptism 
gave bright promise of usefulness, but soon fell away 
from the prayer-meeting, the Young People's Society, 
and finally the Sunday church service. On investiga- 
tion I found in not a few instances that the card table 
was the beginning of the apostacy. When the card 
player's habit has been formed the duties of the chris- 
tian life are nearly always neglected, if not totally 
abandoned. A church which has no desire for spiritual 
life, but is simply a gathering of congenial people for 
mutual enjoyment, can, of course, thrive on card- 
playing and build up its membership. But such a 
church is no church at all. It is a club founded on the 
worldly principle of self-gratification. Its success is the 
failure of Christianity. The world looks on and sneers. 
A man in Boston bought a new piano and in a few 
weeks complained to the manufacturer that it was not 
only out of tune, but full of grating, discordant noises 
that puzzled him. A tuner was sent and found that 
a mouse had gained entrance and built its nest. Card 
playing is a mouse nest in christian life. The music of 



Ethics of the Card Table 

a consecrated life in former days has been marred. The 
remedy is to remove the nest. 

Real christians who play cards may, by the grace of 
God, be saved as by fire, and all their work burned up, 
but I hope that all of us desire a more abundant salva- 
tion. In an English town the garbage is burned up and 
makes a motive power which is used in lighting the 
streets. A great need of the church is the utilization 
of the waste in christian lives. If the time, talent and 
money wasted in card-playing were consumed in work 
for God, the result would be the lighting of many a 
dark spot on earth. 

The first order given to the land forces at Santiago 
was, u Advance by rushes." That meant rush forward a 
few steps and fall dow r n on the ground. Little progress 
was made. When the order for the u long charge " rang 
out the soldiers sprang to their feet and rushed forward 
to victory. The church of Jesus has advanced by rushes 
long enough. The life of ups and downs is too common. 
Our commander orders the "long charge" of a daily- 
persistent, consecrated life. When all the soldiers hear 
the order, victory will be near. 



^^^^=3 



The Ethics of Novel Reading 

" The cloak that I left at Troas with Carpus, when thou comest, 

bring with thee and the books, but especially the 

parchments." II Timothy iv : 13. 



THIS TEXT is an index to the poverty of Paul. He 
could not afford to buy a new cloak to keep him 
warm in the damp, chilly atmosphere of his Roman 
prison. It is an index also to his love of literature. The 
books and the parchments may include many kinds of 
books, sacred and profane. 

Every one knows that Paul was a diligent student of 

the Scriptures, but it is evident that he also read other 

books. In his sermon at Athens, recorded in Acts xvii, 

he quotes from the poet Aratus : u For we 

PAUL read are a ^ so ^ s offspring." Aratus was a native 
of Silicia, Paul's native country, and he 
doubtless became familiar with his writings before his 
conversion. Aratus flourished about 270 B. C. He 
was poet and astronomer. The poem which has come 
down to us is entitled " Phenomena," and was so es- 
teemed by the Romans that Cicero himself translated 
it into Latin. Aratus became the court physician of the 
king of Macedonia, and was very popular. 

In Titus i : 12 Paul quotes from Epimenides : "The 
Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, slow bellies." Epi- 
menides, born about 600 B. C, was poet, pagan prophet, 
and writer on political subjects. He was the Rip Van 
Winkle of his time, and it is possible that Washington 
Irving borrowed his quaint fancy from a tradition which 
says that, while Epimenides was keeping sheep, he 
went into a cave and, falling asleep, did not awake until 
after fifty -seven years, when he came forth from his 
slumber with a large increase of wisdom and inspiration. 
He wrote a poem on u The Voyage of the Argonauts/' 
He was invited by Solon to Athens, that he might give the 



Rev. A. C. Dzxo7t ) s Sermons 

sanction of his sacred presence to the purification of the 
city, just before Solon published his code of laws. The 
Athenians offered him great wealth, but he refused it, 
and accepted only a branch of the sacred olive. A 
legend states that he lived to be nearly three hundred 
years old. 

In I Corinthians xv : 33 Paul quotes from Menander : 
"Evil communications corrupt good manners.'' Menan- 
der was a Greek dramatist who flourished about 342 
B. C. He was a friend of Epicurus, and lived in true 
epicurean style, surrounded by great wealth. He wrote 
about one hundred comedies, some of which still survive. 
In these comedies married ladies are represented as the 
plague and bore of their husbands' lives. Some of his 
sayings are pithy and pointed: "Poverty is the most 
easily cured of all evils ; any friend can do it by merely 
putting his hand in his pocket." u People who have 
no merit of their own generally boast of their ancestors, 
but every living man has ancestors or he would not be a 
living man." u Many a young lady says a great deal in 
her favor by saying nothing at all." 

But Menander, with all his learning and wit, was 
a pagan infidel. He did not believe that the gods had 
anything to do with human affairs. Everything, ac- 
cording to his creed, was determined by inexorable law. 

It will be seen from these quotations that Paul had 
read the pagan poets, philosophers, and even an infidel 
writer, that he might inform himself as to the beliefs of 
the people and be able to meet their errors. 

Books are living things. They have heads, and hearts, 
and arteries, through which courses intellectual and 
moral blood, good or bad. They make and unmake 
character. In some of them are galleries 
of^ook^ R w ith pictures rivalling the masterpieces of 
Raphael and Angelo, while in others there 
is an inferno of misshapen, distorted monsters. Some 
charm you with exquisite music, w r hile others try your 
nerves by their harsh discords. In some you see the 
clash of armies and hear the crash of falling empires ; 
in others there is the quiet of life forces at work building 
in peace the family, the church and the nation. Some 



Ethics of Novel Reading 

books bring you manna from heaven, while others offer 
only the leeks and garlic and onions of Egypt. Some 
carry with them an atmosphere of health-giving ozone, 
while others bring only death-dealing miasma. Some 
uplift and purify, while others degrade and pollute. 
Some are ministering angels, while others are wrecking 
demons . 

The establishment of a library may call for congratu- 
lation or commiseration. It all depends upon the kind 
of books that fill its shelves. Mr. Carnegie had better 
establish in every ward of our cities a pest house, full of 
contagious diseases, than a library of books unwisely 
chosen and freely circulated. Every revolution of our 
great printing presses means an uplifting toward heaven 
or a push toward hell. 

John Angell James declares that he has never recovered 
from the effect of reading a bad book for fifteen minutes. 
Nicholas Farrar taught a useful lesson in a unique way 
when, while he was dying, he ordered a 
havt^donjP fri en d to go and select a spot for his grave, 
and then commanded him to gather from 
his library all the worthless books, that they might be 
burned upon this spot before he was buried. When 
William Wilberforce and Isaac Milner were starting on 
a journey to Scotland it was suggested that they take 
with them and read together Dodridge's " Rise and 
Progress of Religion in the Soul." The reading of this 
book led Wilberforce to Christ, and through him gave 
freedom to the slaves of the British empire. A glance 
into Dr. Watts' hymn-book for children saved Walter 
Scott from suicide. Captain Cook's u Voyages" made 
William Carey a foreign missionary, and gave the Bible, 
in their own tongues, to over two hundred millions of the 
human race. Carey's published letters sent Henry Martin 
to India. Buchanan's u Star in the East" led Adoniram 
Judson from New England to Burmah, and gave to the 
church one of the greatest missionaries in its history. It 
was the reading of Dr. Dick's u Philosophy of the Future 
State" which sent David Livingston as the evangel of 
Christ into the Dark Continent. 

No wonder that a man who knows the value of books 



Rev. A. C. Dixon s Sermons 

delights in their company. Petrarch refused to die any* 
where else than in the midst of his books. While Walt el 
Scott was dying he had his attendants wheel him into his 
library at Abbotsford. The ebbing strength of 
BOOKS F Southey was used in stroking and fondling the 
books which he was not then strong enough to 
read. Paxton Hood tells of a young man w^hose only 
regret at dying was that in heaven he would not have any 
books to read. His old pastor assured him that he would 
there meet the souls of books — the spirits of the men 
who wrote them. Yes, and I have little doubt that there 
w T ill be real books in heaven. Certainly the Book of 
Life is there, and the book with the seven seals ; and 
whv not other books for the delectation of the saved ? 

All this is preparatory to saying that one needs to be 
very careful as to what kind of books he reads or permits 
those under his guardianship to read. No one can read 
a book without being helped or hurt. 

The best novels are biographies of common people. 

The characters in Dickens we have met. They were 

men, women and children whom Dickens knew and 

whose lives he wrote. He delighted in 

torea^ 1 ^ g ivin S to tlie world " The Simple Annals of 
the Poor." Novels which give imaginary 
characters and situations that are unnatural and impos- 
sible are freaks of literature, and those of the French va- 
riety, wdiich revel in realistic portrayal of uncleanness, 
can be purified only by fire. Open the furnace door and 
put them in ; then shut the door, lest the polluted smoke 
should fill the house and scatter contagion. Books written 
by men and women known to be vicious in life had better 
be avoided. A clean thing cannot come out of an unclean. 
Some one has said that history is simply "his story." 
It is the personal coloring which the historian gives to 
facts. Magnify that thought and you have the historical 
novel. The books which novelists write may give a 
better picture of the times than the cold, matter-of-fact 
historian. When, however, the novel reading spirit be- 
comes a passion to the extent that it ignores other books — 
reading and revelling in novel after novel — it is perni- 
cious. It is apt to intoxicate the imagination, keep 



Ethics of Novel Reading 

reason in abeyance, foster feverish excitement, dull con- 
science, and in the end bring collapse of nerves if not of 
character. The novel should be to our mental diet what 
the desert is to dinner. A moderate quantity may aid 
digestion and health ; but, if tempted by the rich flavoring, 
we make our dinner of desert, bad health will be the 
result. 

It is safe to observe three rules in selecting books : 

First. Read, first of all, the books which are already 
classic and known to be good. The literary firmament 

is full of these stars of the first magnitude. 
reading^ Second* Avoid books which you know are 
immoral or anti-christian. You would not 
read a book derogatory to the character of your wife or 
mother, whom you know to be true and good ; neither 
will I read a book derogatory to Christ and His religion, 
which I have tested and know to be true. The char- 
acter of Jesus is no longer an open question. It has been 
settled by the concensus of the ages, and we cannot in 
justice to truth listen to inuendos against Him and His 
religion. 

Third, Do not read a book just because it is new and 
suddenly popular. Wait a year, and you may be saved 
the trouble. 

The Athenian taste, "which wants the new rather than 
the true, is not a healthy intellectual state, and should 
not be fostered. 

Read the Book of Books. The Bible is the sun in the 
heavens, around which all other good books are but 
planets. Read it for its history, its biography, its laws, 
it prophecies, and, above all, for its gospel, 
TO^EAl) K wn i°h it gives us in the revelation of Jesus 
Christ as Saviour and Lord. " Hand me the 
Book," said the dying Walter Scott. "What book?" 
replied his secretary. "There is only one book," he 
answered, as he pointed to the Bible on the table. There 
are times in life when there is only one book in the 
world. This book gives light in darkness, guidance in 
perplexity, strength in weakness, wisdom in ignorance, 
and hope in despair. Study and cherish it as the richest 
literary heritage of God to man. 



The Ethics of Secretism 

" A tale-bearer revealeth secrets, but he that is of a faithful spirit 
concealeth the matter." Proverbs xi: 13. 

" Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick, 

and it giveth light to all that are in the house. Thus let your light shine 

before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your 

Father which is in heaven. " Matthew v : 15-16. 

/^VUR first text gives the basis for a secret society, 
^-^ the purpose of which would be to suppress 
scandel-mongering and gossiping. Some young women 
in Brooklyn organized such a society. It did not last 
long, but it did some good w r hile it lasted. There are 
other kinds of secrecy which the Bible commands : 
" When thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know 
what thy right hand doeth, that thine alms may be in 
secret ; and thy Father, which seeth in secret himself, 
shall reward thee openly." Sounding the trumpet in 
praise of one's own gifts is not Christian. 

We are also commanded to pray in secret, and the 
Father, who heareth in secret, will reward us openly. 
We may also fast in secret. Jesus declared that our 
fasting should not be for men, but for God. We are 
not to disfigure our faces, as the hypocrites do, that they 
may be seen of men, but we are to deny ourselves of 
those things which God disapproves. 

The Psalmist tells us that the secret of the Lord is 
with them that fear Him. Christians have secrets which 
they could not tell to others if they would, for only 
those with spiritual discernment can understand them. 
There is a u secret place of the Most High" in which we 



The Ethics of Secretism 

are invited to dwell. And yet if we should try to organ- 
ize a society for secret giving, praying or fasting, we 
A GOOD kind would make these things public by the very 
OF secrecy act Q f organization. The word "secret" 
here is used in the sense of private. The giving, praying 
and fasting is to be a transaction between the individual 
and God, but he is not commanded to deny the fact that 
he gives, prays or fasts. 

The home is a private place, but not secret in the 
sense that what goes on in the home must be of such a 
nature that you feel constrained to deny its existence. 
A home may have great privacy without secrecy. 
Neither husband, wife or child is sworn not to divulge 
what is said or done within the sacred home circle. 

A secret society is an organization that not only holds 
private meetings, but swears its members not to divulge 
anything that is revealed to them. And without desig- 
nating any special society, I am constrained to say : 

(i) Any society which keeps from the world that 
which would bless mankind if it were revealed is not a 
good institution. Christ said, " Ye are the light of the 
make the world," and it is the nature of light to reveal. 
good public E ver y Christian is a lamp on the lamp-stand, 
giving out light into his sphere of influence. He must 
not put his lamp under a bushel of secrecy. If he knows 
truth which has done him good, he is under pressing 
obligation to pass that truth on to others. He has no 
right to place it under lock and key or to sell it to the 
highest bidder. If he knows things which the world 
would be holier and happier for knowing, he must, if he 
would do his duty, proclaim it so far as possible to all 
mankind. 

(2) The society that displaces and opposes the church 
of Jesus Christ is not to be commended. A gentleman 



The Ethics of Secretism 

some time ago asked me to preach a sermon under the 
auspices of a secret society which he represented. I 
learned from him that twenty-five years ago he was a 
some opposed member of a Christian church, but now 
to the church fo e ^ad no thing but criticism for the 
church. He insisted that secret societies were doing the 
work of the church, and doing it better. I attempted to 
impress upon him the fact that he was trying to use the 
Ruggles Street Church as an advertising pole for the 
society, which, according to his own claim, displaced and 
opposed the church. He was asking for the privilege 
of stabbing us in our own home. Jesus Christ said : 
u Upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates 
of hell shall not prevail against it." And the church of 
Christ is the most important organization in this world. 
Jesus built it himself, and He means that it shall stand. 
The individual or the society that opposes and would 
displace the church of Jesus is doing the work of the devil. 

Another friend in Boston informed me that she be- 
longed to seven secret societies, while her husband was 
a member of nine. They were not wealthy, though 
helping to support, between them, sixteen secret societies. 
She would not even admit that the church occupied a 
place of equal importance with these secret societies. 
She quoted from an orator who said that the church 
was not needed because the society was doing its work. 
Now, I am sure that there are members of secret societies 
who believe in the church of Christ, but they need to 
watch the trend of things and protest against any senti- 
ment which would displace the church of the Living 
God. 

The society that places itself before the church is an 
evil. I have known church members who, when there 
was a conflict between the meeting of the lodge and of 



- — ' 



The Ethics of Secretism 

the church, always went to the lodge. They believed 
in the church, but they gave the society the preference. 
This sort of thing is honeycombing the church of Jesus. 

(3) The society that administers murderous or disloyal 
oaths is an evil institution. I have read that certain secret 
societies swear their members to stand by each other in 
murderous everything, u murder and treason excepted," 
oaths an( j j n one degree they are sworn to protect 

each other, " murder and treason not excepted." If that 
is true, such a society is a menace to government and to 
the community. Its oath conflicts with the oath of the 
court, and makes it impossible to administer justice. I 
have also read the oath of a secret society which swears 
its members not to divulge its secrets on pain of having 
the offender's tongue torn out by the roots and his 
body buried in the sands of the sea at low-water mark. 
Another society makes its members swear that, if they 
divulge its secrets, they will submit to the penalty of 
having their breasts torn open, their hearts plucked out 
and exposed to be devoured by vultures of the air. 
Now, if these oaths are serious things, some one must 
execute the penalty. Some one must cut the heart out 
and expose the body, as the oath requires, and that is a 
savage proceeding which the civilization, much less the 
Christianity, of this day will not tolerate. If, as some 
claim, the oaths are meaningless and the penalties are 
never to be executed, then the taking of such an oath is 
a blasphemous proceeding. Whether the oaths are to 
be executed or not, such swearing is anti-christian and 
immoral. 

(4) The society that sends men to heaven just because 
they are members of it, regardless of character, is a 
power for evil in this world. I learn that some secret 
societies teach that every one of their members will go 



The Ethics of Secretism 

to heaven. Their funeral services certainly assert this. 
I remember that, when a boy, a secret society, including 
about one-half the men in my native village, was pre- 
sided over by the most notorious drunkard in 

FALSE CLAIM 

the community ; and when a funeral occurred 
he read the prayers and went through the ceremonies in 
a most pious sort of way. My boyish impression was 
that such a society must be evil in its influence, and for 
it to make the impression that bad men who died in its 
membership would go straight to the heavenly lodge 
could do only harm. 

(5) The society that claims to be a philanthropic 
institution, when it really receives more from dues than 
it expends on charity, deceives the public. So far as I 

have been able to gather statistics, all secret 

NOT CHARITY . / 

societies receive more from initiation fees 
and regular dues than they expend in philanthropic work. 
It is all right for them to do this as a matter of insurance, 
but it should not be claimed as charity. The church of 
Jesus Christ helps its members, whether they are able to 
contribute or not, but the secret society expects that its 
members pay into its treasury all that is to be expended 
upon them. We have no objection to this as a business 
arrangement, but we do contend that a society of this 
kind has no right to label itself charitable. 

(6) The society that has coarse and brutal methods of 
initiation should not be encouraged. More than one 
man has been killed while being initiated into a secret 
coarse order, and, if half that we hear is true, men 
initiations su brnit to shameful indignities while being 
initiated into certain secret societies. Such coarseness 
and brutality do not tend to elevate the moral tone of a 
community. Indeed, I can see nothing but debasement 
as the result. 



The Ethics of Secretism 

(7) The society that gives limitations to the Ten Com- 
mandments is not of God. Is it true that certain secret 
orders swear their members not to steal from or commit 
law applies adultery with the members of their order or 
TO all those related to them ? This implies that such 
sins may be committed outside the circle of the secret 
society ; such an implication does not tend to good morals. 

(8) That society is bad which indulges in things 
under cover of secrecy which the members are ashamed to 
bring into the light. While in Brooklyn I joined a mutual 
the bad insurance society which I did not know was 
UNDER cover a secre t order, and after an initiation which 
was more elaborate and nonsensical than instructive, I 
learned that entertainments were being held which a 
Christian man could not conscientiously attend. Among 
the first things I received was an invitation to a progressive 
euchre party which was held for the benefit of the order. 
Then came an invitation to what they were pleased to 
call a " stag party," and I learned that it was nothing 
more or less than a vaudeville entertainment. Women 
in undress danced and sang for the delectation of hus- 
bands who had left their wives at home. I felt compelled 
to withdraw, that I might not be associated with such 
abominations. 

(9) The society, secret or public, which expels Jesus 
Christ, no Christian can afford to join. I learn that in 
some secret orders Christ is excluded from certain decrees 
must NOT i n order that Jews and infidels may become 
expel jesus me mbers. " Be not unequally yoked to- 
gether with unbelievers." It seems to me that this is a 
flat denial of our Lord. " We would see Jesus" is the 
desire of every Christian, and we should keep out of any 
organization that refuses to entertain him in all of its 
departments. 



The Ethics of Secretism 

Every secret society that has a worthy purpose would 
be more useful without the feature of secrecy. Truth and 
virtue need no secrecy, while the evils which secrecy 
how to make engenders are numerous. Let the mem- 

secret societies bers of every secret society resolve to 

MORE USEFUL . ; . ... 

begin an agitation for the elimination 
of the feature of secrecy, make it private but not secret. 
Begin with the secret oaths. If the society is w r orthy it 
will live on its own merit and be more useful through the 
publicity of its good features. And if it is so worthless or 
evil that it can be sustained only by the bond of horrible 
secret oaths, for the sake of its members and the world 
about them let it be dissolved. Jesus said u Every one 
that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the 
light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that 
doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds be may 
made manifest that they are wrought in God." 






Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: April 2006 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724) 779-21 1 1 



